distance from the nearest burning house was
half an English mile. From this elevation, the
evening before, we had looked down on a fair
city resting picturesquely on the waters. Now
one-fourth of it is a panorama of flame.
Will that one-fourth be all? It will; the fire
does not spread. It will not; see, a hundred
yards and more behind the east side of the
square, and that much more distant from the
fire, one ridge of roof along its whole length
shows a tiny series of jets of flame. No
more than that. Ten minutes afterwards
other houses showed little puffs of smoke.
Ten minutes yet again, and that house is one
mass of flames, and, from forty houses round,
up rises simultaneously a volume of smoke
dense and black as midnight. Then all at
once they burst together into a flame, which
for volume and height can rarely have been
equalled in the world. The city for a mile
and a half onward and eastward is irrevocably
doomed. No power can save it if the wind
continues.

This was at half-past eight. How long does it
take to burn a detached wooden house of moderate
size? Here is a conclusive experiment.
North of the church, some two hundred yards,
stand two good family houses quite separate.
They have two stories and attics, sixteen or
eighteen windows each in the front. These,
one after another, emitted smoke, first from
the gable ends, then from the ridge, then
from the attic windows. The ridge flamed
out; the flames descended; and from the first
puff of smoke to the time when the whole
house was in flames, was ten minutes, and
fifteen minutes more cancelled the house entirely.
Where it had been was nothing. Two
chimneys and nothing. No standing walls.
Nothing, in fact, struck us more forcibly while
on this height than (a few minutes excepted)
the small quantity of smoke, and the manner in
which it was carried upward by the wind, till,
in the pure air of this region, it vanished over
the lake. The horizon, from the position we
occupied, was nowhere obscured by it. No
doubt this was mainly due to the intense heat
which perfected the combustion. Both sights
and sounds from our observatory were melancholy
in the extreme. Immediately below us,
acres of furniture and thousands of homeless
wanderers covered the fields and cemetery
from the town to the hill. A cow tried
vainly to bury herself from the heat in a
large bush, and then rushed madly about the
field. A little higher up two horses grazed
quietly as though nothing were the matter,
their heads turned full to the fire. The presence
of pigs is known by their horrible squealing,
as one after another the fire reaches them.
The roar of the fire as of a vast cataract, or as
that of London streets a hundred times told—
the crash of falling timbers—but no sound of
people. They have entirely given up hope, and
merely look quietly on. It is now ten o'clock,
but still daylight. The breeze freshens, and
with it the intensity of the fire increases suddenly.
The flames mount higher, the buildings
light up one after another more quickly, the
panorama of fire extends and extends continually,
and all of it glows with a perfectly white
heat, which, during the short darkness of
midnight, illuminated the south side of the city
with an intense colourless light. The heat
now becomes more oppressive than ever, though
we are exposed to the full force of the wind,
which blows the fire away from us.

At eleven o'clock we descended to the extreme
west of the city, and, by courtesy of the
governor of the province whom we encountered,
procured a seat with him in a boat and
rowed to the opposite side of the river. Here
eight or nine ladies whose houses were gone
met our obliging conductor, and a long conference
ensued. What struck one was, that
these ladies, under calamity so awful and
sudden, neither cried nor despaired. They
conversed cheerfully, as though on an ordinary
topic.

We went now a mile to the east to get something
to eat, our dinner having been consumed
by the fire. Afterwards, at midnight, we went
to the top of a warehouse facing the line of
fire on the opposite shore. The magnificence
of the spectacle from this point it is impossible
to exaggerate. A mile and a half of the
opposite shore was burning at a white heat.
At the west-end, on our extreme left, the fire
had partially exhausted itself; and there began
the lower angle of a pyramid of flame and highly-illuminated
smoke, which, ascending towards the
sky higher and higher as it came down the river,
attained opposite to us a marvellous elevation.
There was but little twilight, and the bright
vapour caused the adjacent sky to appear of so
deep a blue that it was almost black. The fire
still advanced down the bank of the fjord. We
reached the gasworks, from which the gas had
been expelled. This building was of brick, and
delayed the progress of the fire more than half
an hour, till we almost thought the remnant of
the town was saved. But the same phenomenon
as at the market-place again occurred, and
the first building to ignite beyond, was a long
way down the shore. At three o'clock in the
morning we re-crossed the river at the west
end. So complete was the destruction, that
we walked up the middle of the burnt-out
street to the church. The granite pavement
was hot to our feel, and crumbled to the touch.
There were no walls to fall on us. The very
ashes were consumed; nothing was visible in
this part but a forest of chimneys, about one
or two to a house. Proceeding northward
of the town, the multitude of chattels and of
people had increased. Many were sleeping,
wrapped up, upon sofas.

From the heights at the east end we watched
the only good house uncondemned. It was a
white one, and we hoped it might be spared.
This was at five o'clock. We returned to the
house over the river, slept till eight, and then
the white house was gone. It was the last
burnt, and was the British consul's.