appearance of nature was hailed as a good augury for the voyage, and the

chief immediately repaired to the harbour to examine two steamboats which

were moored there. On the following midnight, when all were at rest, a

frightful storm of wind and clattering rain and hail first disturbed them,

and the voice of one shrieking in the streets, that the sleepers must awake

or they would be drowned; and when they rushed out, half clothed, to

discover the meaning of this alarm, they found that the tide, rising above

every mark, was rushing into the town. They ascended the cliff, but the

darkness permitted only the white crest of waves to be seen, while the

roaring wind mingled its howlings in dire accord with the wild surges. The

awful hour of night, the utter inexperience of many who had never seen the

sea before, the wailing of women and cries of children added to the horror

of the tumult. All the following day the same scene continued. When the tide

ebbed, the town was left dry; but on its flow, it rose even higher than on

the preceding night. The vast ships that lay rotting in the roads were

whirled from their anchorage, and driven and jammed against the cliff, the

vessels in the harbour were flung on land like sea-weed, and there battered

to pieces by the breakers. The waves dashed against the cliff, which if in

any place it had been before loosened, now gave way, and the affrighted

crowd saw vast fragments of the near earth fall with crash and roar into

the deep. This sight operated differently on different persons. The greater

part thought it a judgment of God, to prevent or punish our emigration from

our native land. Many were doubly eager to quit a nook of ground now become

their prison, which appeared unable to resist the inroads of ocean's giant

waves.

485

The Last Man