22 LOSS OF THE KENT. 
the chains, where they stood until the masts fell overboard, 
to which they then clung for some hours, in a state of horror 
that no language can describe; until they were most provi- 
dentially, I may say miraculously, discovered and picked up 
by the humane master (Bibbey) of the Caroline, a vessel on 
its passage from Egypt to Liverpool, who happened to see 
the explosion at a great distance, and instantly made all sail 
in the direction whence it proceeded. 
After the arrival of the last boat, the flames, which had 
spread along the upper deck and poop, ascended with the ra- 
pidity of lightning to the masts and rigging, forming one ge- 
neral conflagration, that illumined the heavens to an immense 
distance, and was strongly reflected upon several objects on 
board the brig. The flags of distress hoisted in the morning, . 
were seen for a considerable time waving amid the flames, 
until the masts to which they were suspended successively 
fell, like stately steeples, over the ship's side. At last, about 
half past one o'clock in the morning, the devouring element 
having communicated to the magazine, the long threatened 
explosion was seen, and the blazing fragments of the once 
magnificent Kent were instantly hurried, like so many rock- 
ets, high into the air; leaving, in the comparative darkness 
that succeeded, the deathful scene of that disastrous day float- 
ing before the mind like some feverish dream.* 
Although, after the first burst of mutual gratulation and of 
becoming acknowledgment of the divine mercy on account 
of our unlooked-for deliverance had subsided, none of us felt 
disposed to much interchange of thought, each being rather 
inclined to wrap himself up in his own reflections ; yet we 
did not, during this first night, view with the alarm it warrant- 
ed, the extreme misery and danger to which we were still ex- 
posed, by being crowded together, in a gale of wind, with up- 
ward of 600 human beings in a small brig of 200 tons, at a 
distance, too, of several hundred miles from any accessible 
port. Our little cabin, which was only calculated, under or- 
dinary circumstances, for the accommodation of eight or ten 
persons, was now made to contain nearly eighty individuals, 
many of whom had no sitting room, and even some of the la- 
dies no room to lie down. OAving to the continued violence 
of the gale, and to the bulwarks on one side of the brig hav- 
ing been driven in, the sea beat so incessantly over our deck 
as to render it necessary that the hatches should only be lift- 
* The brig was about three miles distant from the Kent at the peri- 
od of its explosion. 
