THE DESTRUCTION OF SZEGEDIN. 45 



narrowly Pesth escaped the fate which has befallen 

 Szegedin : " There was a peculiarity in the thaw of 

 this spring (1876) which told tremendously against 

 us. It came westward viz., down stream, instead 

 of up stream, as it usually does. This state of things 

 greatly increased the chances of flood in the middle 

 Danube, as the descending volume of water and ice- 

 blocks found the lower part of the river still frozen 

 and inert. ... It seems that at Eresi, a few miles 

 below Buda-Pesth, where the water is shallow, the 

 ice had formed into a compact mass for the space of 

 six miles, and at this point the down-drifting ice- 

 blocks got regularly stacked, rising higher and higher, 

 till the whole vast volume of water was bayed back 

 upon the twin cities of Buda and Pesth, the latter 

 place being specially endangered by its site on the 

 edge of the great plain. . . . The only news of the 

 morning (25th February) was a despairing telegram 

 from Eresi that the barrier of ice there was immov- 

 able : this meant there was no release for the pent- 

 up waters in the ordinary course. The accumulated 

 flood must swamp the capital, and that soon. . . . 

 We never quitted the Corso, though this was the 

 third night we had not taken off our clothes ; it was 

 impossible to think of rest now. The gravest anxiety 

 was visible on the face of every soul of that vast 

 multitude. ... I think it must have been ten o'clock 

 when the fortress on the Blocksberg again belched 

 forth its terrible sound of warning. This time there 



