We overtook and sailed down, side by side, with this mighty
conflagration for an hour or more, through water made bright by the
fiery reflection: at last, we outstripped its speed, but, for three
hours after, I never withdrew my eyes from this the grandest sight it
ever was given to me to contemplate; nor was the effect at all
diminished though changed by distance. At one turn of our course we were
presented with a _coup d'oeil_ of fearful grandeur; it seemed as though
the flame had crossed the broad river, and formed a half circle, whose
left extremity was lost in distance, and whose right pursued our path,
rolling after us a lofty wall of fire, from behind which burst wreaths
of smoke, of different degrees of darkness, as though shot up from some
volcano's crater, whilst the more distant masses formed gradually into
clouds of snow, whose lower edges were tinged with mingled lines of gold
and jet.

The wind blew half a gale at about N.N.W., and it was calculated that
our pace could not be less than twelve miles per hour; that of the fire,
therefore, must have been seven or eight, since, despite the turns of
the river, we were closely followed by it for three hours, and very soon
after we anchored at the Balize it again overtook us, rushing on
unchecked whilst it found a supply of food, until extinguished in the
waters of the gulf.

I had before seen the prairie on fire, that is, small districts of mere
dry grass in a blaze; but, although striking from its novelty, it had
none of the grandeur belonging to this wild conflagration. The fuel here
offered to the flame was of an enduring quality, and continued to burn a
fiery red after the first rush of flame had passed over it and onward;
and the next change it assumed was one of singular beauty: the
reflection of the burnt cane, yet standing in perfect order as it grew,
only made transparent by the action of fire, had the appearance of the
harvest of an Eastern tale, composed of grain whose tall stalks were of
burnished gold; whereas on the grass of the wide prairies the effect of
the fire is lost as soon as passed, the bare and blackened soil alone
being left behind.

We arrived at the bar by 10 P.M. and let go an anchor for the night: the
water reported by our pilot to be about eleven feet; a comfortable
hearing, when it is considered that the Shakspeare draws fourteen.

There is now here, hard and fast, an English ship called the Coromandel,
which has been on the