In the month of August, 1829, the province of Moray and adjoining districts were visited by a tremendous flood. Its ravages were most destructive along the course of those rivers which have their source in the Cairngorm mountains. The waters of the Findhorn and the Spey, and their tributaries, rose to an unexampled height. In some parts of their course these streams rose fifty feet above their natural level. Many houses were laid desolate, much agricultural produce was destroyed, and several lives were lost. The woodcut in our text represents the situation of a boatman called Sandy Smith, and his family, in the plains of Forres. "They were huddled together," says the eloquent historian of the Floods, "on a spot of ground a few feet square, some forty or fifty yards below their inundated dwelling. Sandy was sometimes standing and sometimes sitting on a small cask, and, as the beholders fancied, watching with intense anxiety the progress of the flood, and trembling for every large tree that it brought sweeping past them. His wife, covered with a blanket, sat shivering on a bit of a log, one child in her lap, and a girl of about seventeen, and a boy of about twelve years of age, leaning against her side. A bottle and a glass on the ground, near the man, gave the spectators, as it had doubtless given him, some degree of comfort. About a score of sheep were standing around, or wading or swimming in the shallows. Three cows and a small horse, picking at a broken rick of straw that seemed to be half-afloat, were also grouped with the family." The account of the rescue of the sufferers is given with a powerful dramatic effect, but we cannot afford space for the quotation. The courageous adventurers who manned the boat for this dangerous enterprise, after being carried over a cataract, which overwhelmed their boat, caught hold of a floating hay-cock, to which they clung till it stuck among some young alder-trees. Each of them then grasping a bough, they supported themselves for two hours among the weak and brittle branches. They afterwards recovered the boat under circumstances almost miraculous, and finally succeeded in rescuing Sandy and his family from their perilous situation. TREATMENT AND CONDITION OF WOMEN IN FORMER TIMES.