“The air was soft and balmy as that of a midsummer night, and the mellow light of the young moon that was already hanging low over the great sand hills to the westward, spread a soft pale light of deep blue on the bright spangled sky. There were faint night breezes waving the topmost branches of the great shade trees, but they did not touch the rippleless, shining flood which gleamed in long narrow paths. The white moonbeams that, like ribbons of burnished silver, but slept inky and motionless under the black shadows of the trees, and the rounded outlines of each great shade tree was sharply reflected in the mirror-like surface of the water and bordered by a dainty rim of silver. Houses with snow-white walls were faithfully mirrored in that motionless, glittering flood. While to the eastward of each lay a long, deep shadow—a starless night—huge shapeless masses of wreckage drifting past black opaque shadows that grew longer and more intense as the young moon sank so low that her lower horizon was dipping behind a great hoary-crested sand hill in the west. The scene was exquisitely beautiful, but at the same time weird and uncanny. Not a human voice was heard, but near at hand between the lower whispering of the softly dipping oars came the ever varying chorus of the frogs mingling with the low musical murmuring of the mighty river and the deep sullen roar of the crevasse on the far off southern shore. There the sides of the skiff would brush the perfumed shrubbery of a submerged lawn; there could be seen the tree-tops of a splendid orchard just rising out of the flood, their lower limbs swaying and bending with the current. In all this scene of beautiful ruins there was a sense of utter loneliness that was strangely oppressive. Of those who a week ago filled this bright and hustling little town to overflowing, only six families remain. The others have all fled to the adjoining hills, leaving their houses to their fate till the water shall have subsided.”
Such villages as are not deserted have little to do with the world beyond. The post-offices are often exhausted, in addition to the fact that the nearest points not blockaded are miles away; so that the telegraph only brings
TELEGRAPHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
news from beyond, or tells the world how fares the little hamlet. The operator may be driven to the upper story, or to the roof, there to dispute possession with stray turtles or snakes, or to listen to the hoarse remonstrance of some old bullfrog whose nocturnal rest is broken by the clicking of the key. All around is a dreary waste of water, on which the gleam of the moon appears like a ghostly foot-path, and the dark shadows of the naked-limbed trees menace like gaunt spectres. From his elevated position the operator may see the flash of the search-light of a steamer miles away, as the vessel flits along the stream, collecting refugees from the shores; and ever and anon the deep harsh bray of the fog-horn breaks the stillness. Save for these distant tokens of life there is
“Death and silence! death and silence!
Death and silence all around!”
At the great crevasse itself the spectacle is exciting. The fight is not abandoned. Desperate efforts are made to secure the ends from further washing. That once done, there is hope of closing the gap. At the extremity of the break a floating pile-driver is fiercely hammering heavy timbers into the spongy soil. There a tiny, fussing tug is engaged in trying to float a mat of brushwood against the broken bank, while a score of anxious men are watching an opportunity to peg it down. Others endeavor to weave pliant branches among the driven piles to afford a better hold for the guano sacks of earth that are being thrown into the break. From these moist earth is often washed out by the powerful current as though it were melting sugar; while now and then some timber, undermined by the steadily deepening current, leaps upward as though endowed with a life of its own, and dashes away on the foaming stream. After hours of the fierce contest, the ends are at last secured. The pigmy has stopped the giant. The work progresses more easily, now that the workers are sure of their ground. The stubborn creatures contest every inch of space. The roar of the battle goes up incessantly. One fights for life, the other for liberty—such liberty as the tyrant asks of his subjects; such liberty as the wolf asks of the sheep, or the hawk of the doves; such liberty as the strong has always demanded of the weak and defenseless.