The inhabitants of the houses on the bridge, having now become thoroughly alarmed, flung bedding, boxes, and articles of furniture, out of their windows into the river.  A crowd of boats surrounded the starlings, and the terrified occupants of the structures above descending to them by the staircases in the interior of the piers, embarked with every article they could carry off.  The river presented a most extraordinary scene.  Lighted by the red and fierce reflection of the fire, and covered with boats, filled with families who had just quitted their habitations either on the bridge or in some other street adjoining it, its whole surface was speckled with pieces of furniture, or goods, that had been cast into it, and which were now floating up with the tide.  Great crowds were collected on the Southwark shore to watch the conflagration, while on the opposite side the wharves and quays were thronged with persons removing their goods, and embarking them in boats.  One circumstance, noted by Pepys, and which also struck Leonard, was the singular attachment displayed by the pigeons, kept by the owners of several houses on the bridge, to the spots they had been accustomed to.  Even when the flames attacked the buildings to which the dovecots were attached, the birds wheeled round and round them, until, their pinions being scorched by the fire, they dropped into the water.

Leonard remained on the river nearly two hours.  He could not, in fact, tear himself away from the spectacle, which possessed a strange fascination in his eyes.  He began to think that all the efforts of men were unavailing to arrest the progress of destruction, and he was for awhile content to regard it as a mere spectacle.  And never had he beheld a more impressive—­a more terrible sight.  There lay the vast and populous city before him, which he had once before known to be invaded by an invisible but extirminating foe, now attacked by a furious and far-seen enemy.  The fire seemed to form a vast arch—­many-coloured as a rainbow,—­reflected in the sky, and re-reflected in all its horrible splendour in the river.

Nor was the aspect of the city less striking.  The innumerable towers and spires of the churches rose tall and dark through the wavering sheet of flame, and every now and then one of them would topple down or disappear, as if swallowed up by the devouring element.  For a short space, the fire seemed to observe a regular progressive movement, but when it fell upon better material, it reared its blazing crest aloft, changed its hues, and burnt with redoubled intensity.  Leonard watched it thread narrow alleys, and firing every lesser habitation in its course, kindle some great hall or other structure, whose remoteness seemed to secure it from immediate danger.  At this distance, the roaring of the flames resembled that of a thousand furnaces.  Ever and anon, it was broken by a sound like thunder, occasioned by the fall of some mighty edifice.  Then there would