I have room only to add, if the Lord permits, you will soon hear from me again.
CHAPTER XX.
THE SUDDEN STORM.
Rapid travelling—Auburn—Stage coach—Seneca Lake—Summer's sultry heat—Sudden change—Fierce tempest—Imminent peril.
Seneca, August 6th.
In our journey to this place, we had a practical illustration of the increased facilities and greatly accelerated movements of modern travelling. Having left New York on Wednesday evening, the fifteenth of July, at five o'clock, we found ourselves the next evening, before nine o'clock, at Auburn—a distance but little short of three hundred and fifty miles, which was passed over, omitting, in our reckoning, the time spent at Albany, Utica, and Syracuse, in about twenty-one hours.
I cannot now stop to notice the refreshing influence of the broad-swelling tide of the noble Hudson as we sailed up this stream—nor the picturesque aspect of the palisades—nor the more sublime features of the rugged and sombre highlands, throwing their dark shadows upon the moonlit waters below; neither can I now stay to tell you any thing of the improvements in the capital of the great empire state, nor of the improving aspect of the interior city, which stands, as it were, on the dividing line between Eastern and Western New York—nor yet of the peculiarities of the rising town, which is the centre and the great emporium of the salt trade, and which has appropriated to itself the dignified name of the renowned city where the great Archimides met his fate. Passing by all these, with railroad speed, and all the varied beauties of a magnificent agricultural region, I hasten to give you some account of an adventure in which we found ourselves involved just before arriving at this place. The railroad is completed no farther than Auburn, from which place we were obliged to come on in a common stage coach. The morning was very hot and dusty, and our ride, although only about twenty miles, seemed long and tedious. The driver of our coach, in order to avoid the deep sand between Waterloo and Geneva, took the lake-road, which brought us on to the beach of the lake, about three miles from Geneva. From this point, on quite to the village, we keep along upon the circling margin of the lake, with the waters of the broad Seneca dashing up over the pebbly shore, almost laving with every returning surge the carriage wheels. Here too we see the whole expanse of the lake, which is about three miles wide, together with the beautiful farms that sweep away from the shores back into the country; and are also able to follow the long track of these far stretching waters many miles towards their head. Upon a noble and finely-elevated bluff of land which forms the shore and northwestern corner of this beautiful lake, the village of Geneva, with its colleges and churches, and stores and elegant residences, surrounded with gardens and embowered in shade, lies spread out in one noble panoramic view. We had reached the point where all this scene of beauty opened upon us. We thought we never saw the lake more placid—nor all nature more quiet. Every thing seemed to be oppressed with the weight of the sultry and heated atmosphere. Immediately around us was a rural district, from the living features of which Thomson might have drawn all the pictures that make up one scene of his Summer. A various group of herds and flocks were scattered around us. Some lay ruminating on the grassy bank; while others stood half in the flood, and "often bent to sip the circling surface." Deeper in the lake drooped the strong laborious ox "of honest front, which incomposed he shook;" and lashed from his sides the troublous insects with his tail. Not a breath of air seemed to shake a bough of the leafy elm, or spread a ripple over the glassy waters. But as we rode leisurely along the sandy beach, a little cloud seemed gathering over the lake, and now and then a faint gleam of lightning played with fitful and flickering blaze over its darkening fold. We had nearly reached the place of our destination, and were congratulating ourselves that we should be in the midst of our friends and under safe shelter before the shower reached us. But scarcely had we thought this, before the heavens began to gather blackness and the wind to rise and roar as though a tempest were coming. And indeed a tempest was coming; for scarcely five minutes had elapsed after the first visible indications of the coming storm before a perfect gale struck us. The waters of the lake were dashed into the wildest scene of agitation—the trunks, and band-boxes, and baggage began to be blown from the top of our coach, and chased along on the ground, "like a rolling thing before the whirlwind." And then the rain began to descend, and to rush into our carriage as though the water had been scooped up from the lake and poured upon us in a torrent. We had no time to fasten down the uprolled curtains of our coach; we had no time to protect ourselves in any way—our baggage was flying—our horses were frightened—our driver could hardly keep in his seat. And still the storm increased: the wind swept down in a narrow column from the head of the lake with all the fury of a tornado, and blew our horses and coach quite up against the fence, where the rain continued to come in upon us as though a water spout had broken directly over our heads. But this was not our greatest difficulty. Our carriage was now in a position in which it seemed impossible that it should not be upset. The wheels had already become entangled in the fence. One of the huge stakes of the fence was thrust into the window of our carriage which we could not remove, while the carriage itself was rocking, and nearly on its side. The horses all this time were floundering and jumping, and exceedingly restive; but the wind was so strong that they could not move forward. There were three ladies in the coach, of whom I had the care, besides my wife and children, and nurse. Never before did I so fully realize that I was held in the hollow of God's hand, as at this perilous moment. For at least five minutes there seemed to be but a hair's breadth between us and death. But we looked unto the Lord, and he delivered us. In a few moments the storm abated—the rain ceased—the dark clouds rolled away, and the sun came forth as bright and as lustrous as though no mist or dark thunder cloud had ever obscured his disk.