DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0186
158
kirby’s wonderful museum.
immediate suffocation, gained the upper story, and even the
roofs of the houses. Here a more lingering death from
hunger and cold awaited them. Immediate assistance was
impossible, as whole districts were insulated, and cut off
from giving or receiving succour.
“ This was the situation of the country people on the
night of the 21st instant, occasioned by the first breach.
Marienburg had, to that period, been exempted from injury.
The inhabitants laboured under great alarm, however, from
reports which were spread. The Governor and Council
were making preparations to give every assistance to the
country people at break of day; and were dispatching mes-
sengers to procure horses, boats, and ladders. In the midst
of these preparations, and while the alarm was at its height,
the ice made a breach in another dyke, which adjoins the
southern suburb. The water flowed in with great rapidity;
and all the passages in that quarter became inundated.
Judge the consternation that now spread through the town.
The inhabitants, not immediately aware that the calamity
was so limited in its extent, and was in fact confined to that
suburb, where the walls of the warehouses and other build-
ings pent it in, prepared to abandon their homes and fly.
Some well-minded, but ill-judging persons, at this juncture
extended the alarm, by causing the church bells to be rung.
There needed no more to convince many of the inhabitants
that it was the signal of departure ; and that to remain, was
to incur, with loss of property, inevitable destruction. The
streets, in consequence, became thronged, and several per-
sons were trampled to death in attempting to pass through
the gates.
“ At break of day, I went, with others, to the suburbs, to
view’ the inundation. In passing along, we met persons car-
rying the dead bodies of those w'ho had been trampled to
death ; and in every street was scattered wearing apparel,
household furniture, and domestic utensils, which had been
brought out during the night to convey aw'ay, but were after-
kirby’s wonderful museum.
immediate suffocation, gained the upper story, and even the
roofs of the houses. Here a more lingering death from
hunger and cold awaited them. Immediate assistance was
impossible, as whole districts were insulated, and cut off
from giving or receiving succour.
“ This was the situation of the country people on the
night of the 21st instant, occasioned by the first breach.
Marienburg had, to that period, been exempted from injury.
The inhabitants laboured under great alarm, however, from
reports which were spread. The Governor and Council
were making preparations to give every assistance to the
country people at break of day; and were dispatching mes-
sengers to procure horses, boats, and ladders. In the midst
of these preparations, and while the alarm was at its height,
the ice made a breach in another dyke, which adjoins the
southern suburb. The water flowed in with great rapidity;
and all the passages in that quarter became inundated.
Judge the consternation that now spread through the town.
The inhabitants, not immediately aware that the calamity
was so limited in its extent, and was in fact confined to that
suburb, where the walls of the warehouses and other build-
ings pent it in, prepared to abandon their homes and fly.
Some well-minded, but ill-judging persons, at this juncture
extended the alarm, by causing the church bells to be rung.
There needed no more to convince many of the inhabitants
that it was the signal of departure ; and that to remain, was
to incur, with loss of property, inevitable destruction. The
streets, in consequence, became thronged, and several per-
sons were trampled to death in attempting to pass through
the gates.
“ At break of day, I went, with others, to the suburbs, to
view’ the inundation. In passing along, we met persons car-
rying the dead bodies of those w'ho had been trampled to
death ; and in every street was scattered wearing apparel,
household furniture, and domestic utensils, which had been
brought out during the night to convey aw'ay, but were after-