grounds on the south and west: whilst, towards the north and east, the
watery world swept off, uninterruptedly, into the expanding Frith and the
German Ocean. The embankments appeared to have everywhere given way; and
the water that covered the fields, lately so beautiful with yellow wheat,
green turnips, and other crops, rushed with so great impetuosity in
certain directions, as to form numerous currents, setting furiously
through the quieter parts of the inundation, and elevated several feet
above it. As far as the eye could reach the brownish-yellow moving mass
of water was covered with trees and wreck of every description, whirled
along with a force that shivered many of them against unseen obstacles.
There was a sublimity in the mighty power and deafening roar of waters,
heightened by the livid hue of the clouds, the sheeting rain, the howling
of the wind, the lowing of the cattle, and the screaming and wailing of
the assembled people, that riveted the attention. In the distance could
dimly be descried the far-off dwelling of poor Funns, its roof rising
like a speck above the flood, that had evidently made a breach in one of
its ends.

A family named Kerr, who had refused to quit their dwelling, were the
objects of great anxiety. Their son, Alexander Kerr, had been watching
all night, and in the morning was still gazing towards the spot in an
agony of mind, and weeping for the apparently inevitable destruction of
his parents. His master tried to comfort him; but even whilst he spoke,
the whole gable of Kerr's dwelling, which was the uppermost of three
houses composing the row, gave way, and fell into the raging current.
Dr. Brands, who was looking on intently at the time, with a telescope,
observed a hand thrust through the thatch of the central house. It
worked busily, as if in despair of life; a head soon appeared; and at
last Kerr's whole frame emerged on the roof, and he began to exert
himself in drawing out his wife and niece. Clinging to one another, they
crawled along the roof towards the northern chimney. The sight was
torturing. Kerr, a little a-head of the others, was seen tearing off the
thatch, as if trying to force an entrance through the roof, whilst the
miserable women clung to the house-top, the blankets which they had used
to shelter them almost torn from them by the violence of the hurricane;
and the roof they had left yielding and tottering, fell into the sweeping
flood. The thatch res