The poor Funns’ were still the last to be relieved. They and their cattle were clustered on their little speck of land; and the poor quadrupeds, being chilled by standing so long in the water, were continually pressing inwards on them. It was between six and seven o’clock, the weather was clearer, and the waters were subsiding. The task being the most difficult of all, none but the most skilful rowers were allowed to undertake it. One wide inundation stretched from Monro’s house to the tiny spot where Funns and his family were; and five tremendously tumultuous streams raged through it with elevated waves. The moment they dashed into the first of them they were whirled down for a great way; but having once got through it, they pulled up in the quieter water beyond, to prepare for the next; and in doing so, Sergeant Grant stood in the prow, and with a long rope, the end of which was fixed to the boat, and wherever he thought he had footing, he sprang out and dragged them up. The rest followed his example, and in this way they were enabled to start afresh with a sufficient advantage, and they crossed all the outer streams in the same manner. The last they encountered, being towards the middle of the flood, was fearful, and carried them very far down. But Funns himself, overjoyed to behold them, waded towards them, and gave them his best help to drag up the boat again. Glad was he to see his wife and children safely set in the boat. The perils of their return were not few; but they were at length happily landed. These examples will suffice to show the nature and extent of the great floods of Moray. The inundation covered a space of something more than twenty miles in the Plain of Forres, and, as it was expressively remarked by one of the sufferers, “Before these floods was the Garden of Eden and behind them a desolate wilderness.” And how often did the beautiful expression of the Psalmist occur to them: “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters; yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” Ps. xciii. 3, 4.