"By those who were there,
And those who were not,"
is described in two words, Fusion and Confusion. They tell their story.
Next in sublimity to the spectacle of the blazing pile, was the scene afterwards presented, when, as the fire lessened, and the smoke cleared off, the whole space within the walls of the enormous Armoury was opened to the straining eye—a sight of awe and wonder. Above was the "sky" of a November morn; and below, covering the immense sweep of the floor, heaps of fused metal, of dimensions scarcely to be credited, with bayonet-points bristling up everywhere, close-set and countless, like long blades of grass. Innumerable as the stand of small-arms had appeared, they now seemed, starting from the crushed mass, still more multitudinous; the space appeared larger; the scene of destruction more gigantic; and we thought of the moralizing fox walking beside the tree which had been thrown down by a tempest:—"This is truly a noble tree; I never thought it so great while standing."
BOWYER OR CLARENCE TOWER.
After a day or two there was something ridiculous blended with the terror of the spectacle. The Waterloo guns uninjured—(those guns which had played upon the guards at Waterloo with shot, and which the guards in return had played upon with water in loo of shot)—the enormous pieces of artillery; the mighty anchor; the myriad bayonet-points; the masses of metal, dull or shining; the broken columns; the smouldering rubbish; were strangely contrasted with the forms of gaily-attired ladies, courageously clambering over hot heaps, creeping through apparently unapproachable avenues, and raking among the ashes for relics—gun-flints, green, blue, or white, and picturesque bits of metal.
Outside this building, in various directions, the most terrific visible symptom of the intense burning that had made night hideous, were the streams of molten lead from surrounding roofs; the liquid metal, as it fell upon the flagstones, having splashed up and sprinkled the walls to the height of two or three feet.