DESTRUCTION. HI 



selves on the jam of logs that I have mentioned as lying all 

 around the stage ; the logs are gradually breaking loose and drifting 

 about at the mercy of the billows. It is spring tide, the water is at 

 its height, and we are powerless but to stand and watch the scene, 

 while ten or fifteen huge logs are dancing about as if they were 

 playthings. Now the water breaks over both stage-heads, making 

 it impossible for one to rescue the provision and other material there 

 stored. The foam flies in blinding sheets over boards, barrels, and 

 hogsheads (or puncheons as they are here styled) alike ; it dashes 

 against the sides of the stage house, and freezes in heavy masses 

 wherever it touches. The wind whistles, or rather hurries past us for 

 it flies too swiftly to whistle, and still we can only watch the scene. 



Soon the logs are nearly all loose from their moorings ; we watch 

 the waves as they catch them and hurl them with terrific violence 

 against the slender underpinning of the stage house, — which but 

 for this gale would have been sufficiently tight to have stood all 

 ordinary weather during the winter — and crush down the foundation 

 posts as if they were small sticks. Crash follows swiftly after crash. 

 A dull thug, and the farther part of the stage house falls, roof 

 and sides, upon the precious stores contained within, while the 

 inner edge of the platform, thus loosened of its foundation posts, 

 sinks several feet. The topmost crests of the waves sweep over 

 the whole, though not with sufficient force to carry anything away. 

 Over this slippery mass it is impossible for one to think of walking 

 for an instant. We rush for the inside of the stage, after opening 

 the large outer doors at the end, and are appalled to find half the 

 flooring already swept away and the large new boats balancing on 

 the edge of a slender support that threatens to give way and 

 engulf them instantly. There were four of these boats, each one 

 w^orth at least one hundred dollars, and had they been carried 

 away, it would have been a great loss and one not easily replaced. 

 As it is we are in time to save them, and do so at great risk. 



While doing this another crash comes — for the logs are still being 

 hurled against the underpinning of the stage house, though their 

 number and clustered weight now hinder what otherwise one or 



