216 RIVER LIFE. 



torches and lanterns, and listened to the shouts and cries that 

 escaped from them to give the alarm to those beyond, you vi^ould 

 not be surprised at my being reminded of the host of Pharaoh as 

 they fled and sent up their cry from the Red Sea, as it returned 

 upon them in its strength. 



" But the ruinous consequences were, providentially, the loss 

 of property rather than life. The whole business portion of the 

 city was inundated ; and so entirely beyond all reasonable esti- 

 mate was the rise of the waters, that a very large proportion of 

 all the stocks of goods in the stores were flooded. Precautions 

 had been taken, in the lower part of the city, to remove goods 

 from the first to the second story, and yet many who did so had 

 the floors of the second story burst up, and their goods let down 

 into the waters below ; while in the higher portions, where the 

 goods were piled up on and about the counters, the waters rose 

 above them, and involved them in a common destruction. Oth- 

 ers, who did not remove their goods, suffered a total loss of them. 



" Thus far, however, the devastation was confined to the least 

 valuable part of the wealth of the city. The lumber on the 

 wharves constitutes the larger portion of the available property 

 of the city ; and here a kind Providence has spared the devoted 

 city, and by one of those singular methods by which a present 

 evil, which seems to be the greatest that could be inflicted, is 

 the means of averting a greater one ; for it was the occurrence 

 of the jam which, while it inundated the stores, appeared to be 

 the means of saving the lumber. The pressure of the ice against 

 the wharves and lumber was so great as to wedge it in with im- 

 mense strength, and formed a sort of wall outside the wharves, 

 from which the jam, when it started, separated and passed out, 

 leaving the lumber safe, though injured. 



" After the ice stopped, things remained in this situation dur- 

 ing the next day, which was Sunday — the saddest and most 

 serious Sunday, probably, ever passed in Bangor. Few, how- 



