at least a part of their belongings, were first made aware of their danger by having the roof fall in, and barely had time to escape with their lives. House after house caught as though smeared with pitch, and instantly out of each of the innumerable little windows there poured a torrent of flame, long winding sheets, curling and swaying from side to side like great fiery serpents hungry for their prey, reaching down and licking the very stones as though in search of human victims. The fire did not seem to run, but rather fly, and, instead of enveloping the objects in its path, flowed over them like an angry tide. From the Rue Feridee it swept furiously down the Rue Tarla-Bashi, then turned back to pour like a torrent through the Rue de Misc and enfold the entire quarter of Agha-Dgiami as though it had been a forest of dead trees; then the Rue Sakes-Agatshe, then that of Kalindgi-Kuluk, and then street after street with terrifying rapidity until the entire incline of Yeni-Sheir was wrapped in flames; and these met and mingled with the blazing whirlwind which swept, roaring and bellowing, down the Grande Rue de Pera. It was not even as though there had been a thousand disconnected fires to extinguish, a thousand disorganized enemies to vanquish, but rather as though each fresh conflagration were the well-aimed stroke of some master mind controlling and directing all his forces, and having no less object in view than the destruction of the entire city, not one corner of which was to be allowed to escape. The narrow streets were like so many streams of lava, which would meet and swell into rivers or suddenly spread out into fiery lakes, utterly incapable of being stopped or controlled by any one. At the end of three hours half of Pera was in flames; a thousand columns of smoke, red, blue, white, and black, swept over the houses, lightly grazing the roofs, and extending as far as the eye could reach along the hillsides, obscuring and transforming with sinister effect the vast outskirts on the Golden Horn. In all directions could be seen furious whirlwinds of cinders and sparks, while against the houses still standing in the lower quarters of the city the wind beat showers of sparks and bits of charred wood, blowing them about like so much hail. In the burning quarters the streets were simply nothing less than huge furnaces, covered on top with a thick awning of solid flame, and constantly fed with pine wood from the Black Sea used for beams, the light inflammable rafters of _ciardak_, balconies and wooden minarets from the smaller mosques, all of which, falling in with a crackling, splintering noise, sounded as though they were being torn in pieces by an earthquake. Down those streets which were still passable flying forms were seen of mounted lancers, illuminated by what might have been the light of the infernal regions, as they galloped furiously in all directions, carrying the orders of the Seraskerat; Seraglio officials