The ruin effected by the descent of the larger portion was more terrible. It took the direction of the Lake of Lowertz. Among its first victims were nine persons belonging to a party which had come from Berne to climb to the top of the Righi. Besides the village of Goldau, the adjacent villages of Bussingen and Hussloch, and three-fourths of the village of Lowertz, were overwhelmed. But the destruction did not stop here. The larger of the two portions filled up nearly one-fourth of the Lake of Lowertz. The body of water thus displaced formed a wave which swept over the little island of Schwanau in the lake, rising to the height of seventy feet, besides doing a great deal of mischief along the shore, especially to the village of Seewen.

By this disaster nearly five hundred persons lost their lives, and damage was done to the amount of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Of all the inhabitants, about twenty were taken alive from the ruins. Two out of a family of seven were saved as by a miracle. At the moment of the catastrophe the father was standing at his own door with his wife and three children. Seeing the mass rolling towards him, he caught up two of the children, bidding his wife follow him with the third. Instead of doing so, however, she turned back into the house to fetch the remaining child, Marianne, and Frances Ulrich, the servant-maid. Frances seized the little girl by the hand, and was leading her out, when the house, which was of timber, seemed to be torn from its foundations, and to turn over and over like a ball, so that she was sometimes on her head and sometimes on her feet. A storm of dust made the day dark as night. The violence of the shock separated her from the child, and she hung head downwards. She was squeezed and bruised a good deal, and her face was much cut and very painful. After some time she released her right hand, and wiped the blood from her face. She then heard Marianne groaning, and calling ‘Frances, Frances!’ The child said that she was lying on her back among stones and bushes, unable to rise; that her hands were at liberty, and that she could see the daylight and the green fields. Frances had imagined that they were buried a great depth under ground; and thought that the last day was come.

After remaining in this state some hours, Frances heard a bell, which she knew to be that of the village church of Steinen, calling the survivors to prayer. The little girl was now crying bitterly from pain and hunger; and the servant-maid tried in vain to comfort her. From sheer exhaustion, however, the cry became weaker, and then ceased entirely. Meanwhile, Frances herself was in a most painful position, hanging with her head downwards, enveloped in the liquid clay, and cold almost beyond endurance. By persevering in her efforts, she at length got her legs free, and so obtained partial relief. A silence of some hours followed. When the dark hours of that terrible night had passed and morning came, she had the satisfaction of knowing that the child was not dead, but had fallen asleep. As soon as she awoke, she began to cry and complain. The church bell now went again for prayers; and Frances heard also the voice of her master making lamentations over his loss. He had succeeded in escaping and rescuing the two children he had with him, though one was for a time partly buried in the fringe of the landslip. Seeking for the other members of his family, he had found the lifeless body of his wife with the child she had taken in her arms, at a distance of more than a quarter of a mile from where his house had stood. All of her that was visible was one of her feet. While digging out her body, he heard the cries of little Marianne. The child was at once disinterred from her living grave; and though one of her legs was broken, she seemed more anxious for the release of Frances than for her own comfort. The maid was soon extricated; but she was bruised and wounded in a frightful manner. For a long time her recovery was very doubtful. Even after she was out of danger, she was unable to bear the light, and was for a lengthened period subject to convulsions and seasons of extreme fear and terror.

A traveller who visited the district about a week after the catastrophe has given an interesting description of his visit: ‘Picture to yourself a rude and mingled mass of earth and stone, bristling with the shattered remains of wooden cottages, and with thousands of heavy trees torn up by their roots and projecting in all directions. In one part you might see a range of peasants’ huts, which the torrent of earth had reached with just force enough to overthrow and break in pieces, but without bringing soil enough to cover them. In another were mills broken in pieces by huge rocks, separated from the top of the mountain, which were even carried high up the Righi on the opposite side. Large pools of water were formed in different places; and many little streams, whose usual channels had been filled up, were bursting out in various places.’

THE WHITEBOYS OF SIXTY YEARS AGO.

There is living in our neighbourhood an old man, the son of a once famous ‘Whiteboy.’ As such, his bringing-up must have been strangely in keeping with the moonlighting propensities of the present day, and of which we unfortunately hear so much. But not so. ‘Barry,’ as we shall call him, has a horror of Land-leagueism, and will have nothing to do with it. His experience of the Whiteboys, or Moonlighters of sixty years ago, is interesting—at least to me; and I hope the following account will prove so to those who are not quite au fait with the doings of these confederations in Ireland sixty years ago.

Some time since, on the death of a relative, besides other effects willed to me, was a box containing several curios. Amongst them was a genuine letter written in 1823 by Captain Rock, in those days the Moonlight leader of the Whiteboys. Knowing from Barry that his father had been not only an admirer of Captain Rock, but a follower of his, I showed him the letter, hoping that in doing so I would also verify its authenticity. It was as follows:

¹ Perevil of the Peak. ¹

Notis.

Notis to Mistres H—— And all Whoe it May consarn that Whin Capton Rock and His Adicongs visot you next you Will take Kare to Have plenti of Mate and Pratees not Forgeting a Smol drop of the Crater.[1]