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 resisted all Kerr’s efforts; and he was now seen to let himself drop from the eaves on a small speck of ground higher than the rest, close to the foundation of the back wall of the buildings, which was next the spectators.  There he finally succeeded in bringing down the women; and there he and they stood, without even room to move.

Some people went on horseback to try to procure boats.  They managed to get on some way by keeping the line of road.  The water was so deep that the horses were frequently swimming; but at length the current became so strong that they were compelled to seek the rising grounds.  Dr. Brands attempted to reach the bridge of Findhorn, in hopes of getting one of the fishermen’s cobbles.  As he was approaching the bridge he learned that the last of the three arches had fallen the instant before; and when he got to the brink, the waters were sweeping on as if it had never been, making the rocks and houses vibrate with a distinct and tremulous motion.  The current was playing principally against the southern approach of the bridge, and soon the usually dry arch, at its further end, burst with a loud report; its fragments, mixed with water, being blown into the air as if by gunpowder.  The boats had all been swept away, and the fishermen’s houses were already one mass of ruin.  The centre of the main stream was hurried on at an elevation many feet higher than the rest of the surrounding sea of waters; the mighty rush of which displayed its power in the ruin it

occasioned.  Magnificent trees, with all their branches, were dashing and rending against the rock, and the roaring and crashing sound that prevailed was absolutely deafening.

As there was no chance of getting a boat the Doctor returned with difficulty to the house, his mare swimming a great part of the way.  On again looking through the telescope at poor Kerr and his family, they were seen huddled together on a spot of ground a few feet square, some forty or fifty yards below their inundated dwelling. [55]  He was sometimes standing and sometimes sitting on a small cask, and, as the beholders fancied, watching with intense anxiety the progress of the flood, and trembling for every large tree that it brought sweeping past them.  His wife, covered with a blanket, sat shivering on a bit of a log, one child in her lap, and a girl of about seventeen, and a boy of about twelve years of age, leaning against her side.  A bottle and a glass on the ground near the man gave the spectators, as it had doubtless given him, some degree of comfort.  Above a score of sheep were standing around, or wading, or swimming in the

shallows.  Three cows and a small horse picking at a broken rick of straw that seemed to be half afloat, were also grouped with the family.  Dreading that they must all be swept off, if not soon relieved, the gentlemen hastened to the offices, and looked anxiously out from the top of the tower for a boat.  At last they had the satisfaction to see one launched from the garden at Earnhill, about a mile below.  The boat had been conveyed by a pair of horses, and had only just arrived.  It was nobly manned by three volunteers, and they proceeded at once to the rescue of a family who were in a most perilous situation in the island opposite to Earnhill.  The gentlemen on the tower watched the motions of this boat with the liveliest interest.  They saw it tugging up till it was hid from them by the wood.  Again it was seen beyond, and soon it dashed into the main stream and disappeared again behind the wood, with a velocity so fearful that they concluded it was lost.  But in a moment it again showed itself, and the brave fellows were seen plying their oars across the submerged island of Earnhill, making for John Smith’s cottage; the thatch and a small part of the side walls of which were

visible above the water.  The poor inmates were dragged out of the windows from under the water, having been obliged to duck within ere they could effect their escape.  The boat then swept down the stream towards a place called ‘The Lakes,’ where John Smith, his wife, and her mother were safely landed.

The boat was next conveyed by the horses to a point from which it was launched for the rescue of the Kerrs.  Having pulled up as far as they could in the still water, they approached the desperate current, and fearlessly dashed into its tumultuous waves.  For a moment the spectators were in the most anxious doubt as to the result; for, though none could pull a stronger oar, yet the boat in crossing a distance equal to its own length was swept down 200 yards.  Ten yards more would have dashed them to atoms on the lower stone wall.  But they were now in comparatively quiet water; and availing themselves of this, they pulled up again to the park, in the space between two currents, and passed, with a little less difficulty, though in the same manner, the second and third streams, and at length reached the houses.  The spectators gave them three hearty cheers. 

By this time the Kerrs had been left scarcely three feet of ground to stand on, under the back wall of the houses.  A pleasing sight it was to see the boat touch that tiny strand, and the despairing family taken on board.  How anxiously did the spectators watch every