of flame, that spread over nearly six thousand square miles!  That the reader may form a faint idea of the desolation and misery, which no pen can describe, he must picture to himself a large and rapid river, thickly settled for one hundred miles or more on both sides of it.  He must also fancy four thriving towns, two on each side of this river, and then reflect that these towns and settlements were all composed of wooden houses, stores, stables and barns; that these barns and stables were filled with crops, and that the arrival of the fall importations had stocked the warehouses and stores with spirits, powder, and a variety of cumbustible articles, as well as with the necessary supplies for the approaching winter.  He must then remember that the cultivated or settled part of the river is but a long, narrow strip, about a quarter of a mile wide, lying between the river and almost interminable forests, stretching along the very edge of its precints and all around it.  Extending his conception, he will see the forests thickly expanding over more than six thousand square miles, and absolutely parched into tinder by the protracted heat of a long summer.

“Let him then animate the picture, by scattering countless tribes of wild animals, and hundreds of domestic ones, and even thousands of men in the interior.  Having done all this, he will have before him a feeble outline of the extent, features, and general circumstances of the country, which, in the course of a few hours, was suddenly enveloped in fire.  A more ghastly or a more revolting picture of human misery can not well be imagined.  The whole district of cultivated land was shrouded in the agonizing memorials of some dreadful deforming havoc.  The songs of gladness that formerly resounded through it were no longer heard, for the voice of misery had hushed them.  Nothing broke upon the ear but the accents of distress; the eye saw nothing but ruin, and desolation, and death.  New Castle, yesterday a flourishing town, full of trade and spirit, and containing nearly one thousand inhabitants, was now a heap of smoking ruins; and Douglasstown, nearly one-third of its size, was reduced to the same miserable condition.  Of the two hundred and sixty houses and storehouses, that composed the former, but twelve remained; and of the seventy that comprised the latter, but six were left.  The confusion on board of one hundred and fifty large vessels, then lying in the Mirimachi, and exposed to imminent danger, was terrible—­some burned to the water’s edge, others burning, and the remainder occasionally on fire.

“Dispersed groups of half-famished, half-naked, and houseless creatures, all more or less injured in their persons, many lamenting the loss of some property, or children, or relations and friends, were wandering through the country.  Of the human bodies, some were seen with their bowels protruding, others with the flesh all consumed, and the blackened skeletons smoking; some with headless trunks, and severed extremities;