laws, but were turned adrift in an unknown region of space.  Many cried aloud, that these were no meteors, but globes of burning matter, which had set fire to the earth, and caused the vast cauldron at our feet to bubble up with its measureless waves; the day of judgment was come they averred, and a few moments would transport us before the awful countenance of the omnipotent judge; while those less given to visionary terrors, declared that two conflicting gales had occasioned the last phaenomenon.  In support of this opinion they pointed out the fact that the east wind died away, while the rushing of the coming west mingled its wild howl with the roar of the advancing waters.  Would the cliff resist this new battery?  Was not the giant wave far higher than the precipice?  Would not our little island be deluged by its approach?  The crowd of spectators fled.  They were dispersed over the fields, stopping now and then, and looking back in terror.  A sublime sense of awe calmed the swift pulsations of my heart—­I awaited the approach of the destruction menaced, with that solemn resignation which an unavoidable necessity instils.  The ocean every moment assumed a more terrific aspect, while the twilight was dimmed by the rack which the west wind spread over the sky.  By slow degrees however, as the wave advanced, it took a more mild appearance; some under current of air, or obstruction in the bed of the waters, checked its progress, and it sank gradually; while the surface of the sea became uniformly higher as it dissolved into it.  This change took from us the fear of an immediate catastrophe, although we were still anxious as to the final result.  We continued during the whole night to watch the fury of the sea and the pace of the driving clouds, through whose openings the rare stars rushed impetuously; the thunder of conflicting elements deprived us of all power to sleep.

This endured ceaselessly for three days and nights.  The stoutest hearts quailed before the savage enmity of nature; provisions began to fail us, though every day foraging parties were dispersed to the nearer towns.  In vain we schooled ourselves into the belief, that there was nothing out of the common order of nature in the strife we witnessed; our disasterous and overwhelming destiny turned the best of us to cowards.  Death had hunted us through the course of many months, even to the narrow strip of time on which we now stood; narrow indeed, and buffeted by storms, was our footway overhanging the great sea of calamity—­

  As an unsheltered northern shore
  Is shaken by the wintry wave—­
  And frequent storms for evermore,
  (While from the west the loud winds rave,
  Or from the east, or mountains hoar)
  The struck and tott’ring sand-bank lave.[1]

It required more than human energy to bear up against the menaces of destruction that every where surrounded us.