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soothing itself by fervent expectation, now recoiling from obstacles which
seem never to have presented themselves before with so frightful an aspect.
An involuntary tremor ran through me when I thought that in another day we
might have crossed the watery barrier, and have set forward on that
hopeless, interminable, sad wandering, which but a short time before I
regarded as the only relief to sorrow that our situation afforded.
Our approach to Dover was announced by the loud roarings of the wintry sea.
They were borne miles inland by the sound-laden blast, and by their
unaccustomed uproar, imparted a feeling of insecurity and peril to our
stable abode. At first we hardly permitted ourselves to think that any
unusual eruption of nature caused this tremendous war of air and water, but
rather fancied that we merely listened to what we had heard a thousand
times before, when we had watched the flocks of fleece-crowned waves,
driven by the winds, come to lament and die on the barren sands and pointed
rocks. But we found upon advancing farther, that Dover was overflowed--
many of the houses were overthrown by the surges which filled the streets,
and with hideous brawlings sometimes retreated leaving the pavement of the
town bare, till again hurried forward by the influx of ocean, they returned
with thunder-sound to their usurped station.
Hardly less disturbed than the tempestuous world of waters was the assembly
of human beings, that from the cliff fearfully watched its ravings. On the
morning of the arrival of the emigrants under the conduct of Adrian, the
sea had been serene and glassy, the slight ripples refracted the sunbeams,
which shed their radiance through the clear blue frosty air. This placid
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