“The hurricane increased, and the fires drove onward before it, and the fierce flames towered far up into the sky. Then there came a low moan from afar, which increased, and strengthened, and deepened, until at last it grew to a loud, appalling roar--a roar like sustained thunder, which still grew louder, and deeper, and nearer, and more awful. In the midst of this came the sound of crackling, like musketry volleys, and loud, tremendous explosions, like the discharge of cannon. And all this increased every minute, the fires sweeping onward more terribly, the roar of its advance gathering in intensity and volume, until at last the vast sheets of flame seemed to rise almost to the zenith. Overhead all the black smoke was now reddened in the glow of the fire, and there passed away over the sky a fierce torrent, bearing with it innumerable sparks, and blazing twigs, and branches of trees, which had been torn from the forest by the fire, and were now hurled through the air by the hurricane. “Now there arose the wildest panic. All had been so sudden that there had been no time for thought--but even if there had been time, no thought could have availed. There was only one common impulse in all living things, whether man or beast, and that was escape. One cry only arose--the cry, ‘To the river! To the river!’ In this direction every one hurried, a confused crowd,--men, women, children, horses, cows, and dogs,--some carrying the old or the sick, others assisting the weak; fathers carrying their children, mothers their infants. Each seized what was most precious, and fled. All the time there were wild outcries--some of fear, others of hope, others of command, others of despair from some who had been separated from relatives, and were trying to find them again. Then they all hurried to the river; and some stood plunged in the water, others sought boats, others rafts, others floated on logs, while others sought the opposite shore, from which, however, the fires that spread even there soon drove them. “And now the whole country, in all directions, blazed. The whole forest was as dry as tinder, and everywhere the floating sparks would fall upon the trees, and there would kindle fresh flames, which would sweep away before the hurricane like those behind. It was this that made the conflagration so swift and so universal.