A few moments after it was first perceived, the walls fell, and the flames burst forth with a fearful rapidity, curling and twisting themselves in all directions; seizing upon every thing within their reach, and illuminating the heavens with their awfully grand lustre. The church bell tolled forth its solemn warning; drums beat an alarm; and, in the words of an old writer, when describing the fire in London in 1666, “dreadful screams disturbed the midnight quiet, and raised the affrighted people from their beds, who, scarce awake, all seemed to be a dream. Each one appeared but as a moving statue, as once Lot’s wife, viewing her flaming Sodom, was transformed into a pillar.” So saith “Samuel Wiseman,” and his graphic description answers equally for the fire of Antigua, as it did in yore, for that of London. House after house, store after store, fell beneath the raging element; or, when built of stone, only their bare and blackened walls were left standing. No sooner was one house on fire, than the flames were pouring into the windows of the next; scathing the trees as they passed, dismantling them of their verdure, and leaving them only a seared and withered trunk. Again the Custom House fell a victim, and to this cause many deficiencies in the statistical part of this work may be attributed; for, from the suddenness and violence of the fire, many valuable records were lost. Still the fiery deluge rolled on,—at one moment the sky was almost hidden by the dense masses of smoke; at another, bright spiral lines of flame shot up into the air, and cast a lurid light on all around. I am sorry to record it, but the negro-men behaved very ill, refusing to lend assistance, (in most instances,) but employing their time in plundering from the sufferers. To the glory of the women, be it spoken, _they_ did not follow the example of their kinsmen, but cheerfully and firmly laboured through that awful night. The crew of two French ships of war, which chanced to be lying in the harbour, also assisted, aided by the sailors from the English and island vessels; and the gentlemen of the town, headed by the lieutenant-governor, Major McPhail, (who flew to the scene of danger stockingless and almost slipperless,) worked with undaunted courage and good-will; and by dint of energy, and pulling down several small houses, so as to make room for the flames in their gyral evolutions, at length succeeded in gaining the mastery over their formidable enemy.