60 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



waters ; hundreds were swallowed up by the flood, and 

 through the rushing of the waves were heard the cries of 

 anguish of the unfortunates who were struggling with 

 death, or who had been separated by the surging waters. 

 In furious haste the waters swallowed up the plain, broke 

 through the railway dam into the village of Alcantarilla, 

 hurried on to the village of Nonduirmas, which they left 

 almost entirely in ruins, and dashed onwards towards 

 Murcia, bearing along with it human beings, animals, 

 trees, and houses. My host in Alcantarilla showed me from 

 his balcony the extent of the great flood, more than a league 

 in breadth ; it reached to the sierra, the mountain chain of 

 Carrascoy. One would imagine it to be impossible that 

 such a large plain could be converted so suddenly into a 

 sea. But when we set out on our journey through the 

 plain traces of devastation were but too plain. For nearly 

 a mile the railway dam was thrown down, having torn 

 down along with it a little house which till then had 

 resisted the waves. Great masses of sand covered the 

 once so fertile fields, and of the village, Voy Negra, almost 

 nothing but ruins was left. Voy Negra means " black 

 news," and is so called because hundreds of years ago the 

 dwellers in Murcia there heard the sorrowful news of the 

 defeat of their soldiers by the Arabs. This time the 

 waters brought even blacker news with the ruins and 

 dead bodies which they carried in their fatal depths. 

 What misfortunes, terror, efforts for deliverance, fear, and 

 death struggles are concealed in the darkness of this 

 single night ! There a family seek salvation on the roof 

 of a neighbouring house, less exposed than their own to 

 the fury of the waters ; but whilst the first house remains 

 standing, the second buries the whole family in its ruins ! 

 Another hut is thrown down ; but whilst the father is 

 able to save himself by clinging to a fig tree, his wife and 

 children are helplessly lost ! 



' We entered a little hut ; a hole was burned in the 

 roof, which, like the most there, consisted of plaited cane 

 with tiles above j on the three walls which remained 



