The shore was lined with spectators, when the little party approached the scene of the freshet.  We do not know that we have succeeded in conveying a clear idea of the river we have attempted to describe.  It may be recollected, that it was spoken of as one of the tributaries of the Severn, coming in from the East, and sweeping round that side of the town.  The banks, on the side opposite, were high and precipitous; but, on the hither side—­with the exception of the narrow passage through which the river poured itself into the Severn, and for a short distance above—­the ground rose gently from the stream before it reached the foot of the hill, interposing a piece of comparatively level land.  The road that ran on this flat spot, and connected the eastern portion (which, from the extempore character of its buildings, as well as from other causes we do not choose to mention, was called Hasty-Pudding), with the rest of the town, was, usually, in very high floods, overflowed.  Such was the fact in the present instance, and boats were busily engaged in transporting persons over the submerged road.  As you stood near the mouth of the river, and looked up the current, a scene of considerable interest, and, even grandeur, presented itself.  At that time, the innumerable dams higher up the stream, that have been since constructed, had not been built, nor had the rocks, at the throat, been blasted to make a wider egress.  The ice, which then rushed down, as it were by agreement, simultaneously and in huge blocks—­but, now-a-days, at intervals, and broken up by falling over the dams—­unable to escape in the eager rivalry of the cakes to pass each other, was jammed in the throat, and piled up high in the air, looking like ice-bergs that had floated from the North Pole.  You saw the stream, at all times, rapid, and now, swollen vastly beyond its ordinary proportions, rushing with ten-fold force, and hurrying, in its channel, with hoarse sounds, the ice-cakes, which, in the emulous race, grated against, and, sometimes, mutually destroyed one another, to drive some under the icy barrier, thence to glide away to the ocean, and to toss others high above the foaming torrent on the collected masses, more gradually to find their way to the same bourne.  Looking away from the channel, one saw the cakes caught in the eddies, whirled up against the banks, and, in some instances, forced into smoother and shoaler water, where they grounded, or were floated into little creeks and bays formed by the irregularities of the shores.  These quiet places were, of course, on the side nearest the town, the opposite bank being too abrupt and the water too deep, for there was the channel, and there the water tore along with the greatest violence.