We learn from the account of Captain Napier, that the heavy rains had swollen every stream which entered the Firth of Solway; so that the inundation not only carried away a great number of cattle and sheep, but many of the herdsmen and shepherds, washing down their bodies into the estuary. After the storm, when the flood subsided, an extraordinary spectacle was seen on a large sand-bank called "the beds of Esk," where there is a meeting of the tidal waters, and where heavy bodies are usually left stranded after great floods. On this single bank were found collected together the bodies of 9 black cattle, 3 horses, 1840 sheep, 45 dogs, 180 hares, besides a great number of smaller animals, and, mingled with the rest, the corpses of two men and one woman.[1070]
Floods in Scotland, 1829.—In those more recent floods in Scotland, in August, 1829, whereby a fertile district on the east coast became a scene of dreadful desolation, a vast number of animals and plants were washed from the land, and found scattered about after the storm, around the mouths of the principal rivers. An eye-witness thus describes the scene which presented itself at the mouth of the Spey, in Morayshire:—"For several miles along the beach crowds were employed in endeavoring to save the wood and other wreck with which the heavy-rolling tide was loaded; whilst the margin of the sea was strewed with the carcasses of domestic animals, and with millions of dead hares and rabbits."[1071]
Savannahs of South America.—We are informed by Humboldt, that during the periodical swellings of the large rivers in South America great numbers of quadrupeds are annually drowned. Of the wild horses, for example, which graze in immense troops in the savannahs, thousands are said to perish when the river Apure, a tributary of the Orinoco, is swollen, before they have time to reach the rising ground of the Llanos. The mares, during the season of high water, may be seen, followed by their colts, swimming about and feeding on the grass, of which the top alone waves above the waters. In this state they are pursued by crocodiles; and their thighs frequently bear the prints of the teeth of these carnivorous reptiles. "Such is the pliability," observes the celebrated traveller, "of the organization of the animals which man has subjected to his sway, that horses, cows, and other species of European origin, lead, for a time, an amphibious life, surrounded by crocodiles, water-serpents, and manatees. When the rivers return again into their beds, they roam in the savannah, which is then spread over with a fine odoriferous grass, and enjoy, as in their native climate, the renewed vegetation of spring."[1072]
Floods of the Parana.—The great number of animals which are drowned in seasons of drought in the tributaries of the Plata, was before mentioned. Sir W. Parish states, that the Parana, flowing from the mountains of Brazil to the estuary of the Plata, is liable to great floods, and during one of these, in the year 1812, vast quantities of cattle were carried away, "and when the waters began to subside, and the islands which they had covered became again visible, the whole atmosphere for a time was poisoned by the effluvia from the innumerable carcasses of skunks, capybaras, tigers, and other wild beasts which had been drowned."[1073]
Floods of the Ganges.—We find it continually stated, by those who describe the Ganges and Burrampooter, that these rivers carry before them, during the flood season, not only floats of reeds and timber, but dead bodies of men, deer, and oxen.[1074]
In Java, 1699.—I have already referred to the effects of a flood which attended an earthquake in Java in 1699, when the turbid waters of the Batavian river destroyed all the fish except the carp; and when drowned buffaloes, tigers, rhinoceroses, deer, apes, and other wild beasts, were brought down to the sea-coast by the current, with several crocodiles which had been stifled in the mud. (See above, p. 503.)
On the western side of the same island, in the territory of Galongoon, in the Regencies, a more recent volcanic eruption (that of 1822, before described) (see above, p. [431]) was attended by a flood, during which the river Tandoi bore down hundreds of carcasses of rhinoceroses and buffaloes, and swept away more than one hundred men and women from a multitude assembled on its banks to celebrate a festival. Whether the bodies reached the sea, or were deposited, with drift matter, in some large intervening alluvial plains, we are not informed.[1075]
Sumatra.—"On the coast of Orissa," says Heynes, "I have seen tigers and whole herds of black cattle carried along by what are called freshes, and trees of immense size."[1076]
In Virginia, 1771.—I might enumerate a great number of local deluges that have swept through the fertile lands bordering on large rivers, especially in tropical countries, but I should surpass the limits assigned to this work. I may observe, however, that the destruction of the islands, in rivers, is often attended with great loss of lives. Thus when the principal river in Virginia rose, in 1771, to the height of twenty-five feet above its ordinary level, it swept entirely away Elk Island, on which were seven hundred head of quadrupeds,—horses, oxen, sheep, and hogs,—and nearly one hundred houses.[1077]
The reader will gather, from what was before said respecting the deposition of sediment by aqueous causes, that the greater number of the remains of quadrupeds drifted away by rivers must be intercepted by lakes before they reach the sea, or buried in freshwater formations near the mouths of rivers. If they are carried still farther, the probabilities are increased of their rising to the surface in a state of putrefaction, and, in that case, of being there devoured by aquatic beasts of prey, or of subsiding into some spots whither no sediment is conveyed, and, consequently, where every vestige of them will, in the course of time, disappear.