THE PINE. 31 



awakening them from their sleep by its invasion, 

 they could not but be alarmed. The attempts to 

 escape from the houses led to new alarms ; for when 

 the door was opened a torrent was ready to enter : 

 and they to whom the visitation first came were, 

 both from that visitation itself, and from ignorance 

 of its real cause, in very great consternation. They, 

 however, spread the alarm; and driving their cattle 

 before them, and carrying their children and the most 

 valuable and portable of their household articles, they 

 roused their neighbours as they went. It was fortu- 

 nate that the inhabitants were scattered over the 

 country, for had they been collected into a village, 

 there can be little doubt that the alarm and confusion 

 would have occasioned the loss of many lives. But 

 though the people themselves, and, generally speak- 

 ing, their cattle escaped, they were, for the most part, 

 obliged to leave their corn to be buried under the 

 black deluge. When the morning dawned, the appear- 

 ance of their homes was sadly changed. Instead of 

 fields, and little hedge-rows, and cottage-gardens, 

 with all the other interesting features of a rich and 

 rural country, there was one black waste of peat 

 earth. Some of the cottages had totally disappeared, 

 others presented only the roof, the eaves of which 

 were at least eight feet from the ground. When first 

 seen, the extent that the moss covered was not less 

 than two hundred acres. Successive torrents of rain 

 that fell afterwards augmented the mischief, till ulti- 

 mately the whole surface covered extended to at 

 least four hundred acres. The highest parts of the 

 moss had subsided to the depth of about twenty-five 

 feet, and the height of the moss on the lowest parts 

 of the country which it had invaded was, at least, 

 fifteen feet. 



The bursting of the Solway Moss resembled, to a 

 certain extent, the letting out of a dam. Between it 



