The Rays Of The Sun Never Penetrate The Forest, And Evening Was Deepening
The Gloom Of The Artificial Twilight, When Gradually We Became Enveloped
In A Glare, Redder, Fiercer, Than That Of Moonlight; And Looking A Head I
Saw The Forest On Fire, And That We Were Rushing Into The Flames.
"Close
the windows, there's a fire a-head," said the conductor; and after obeying
this commonplace direction, many of the passengers returned to the
slumbers which had been so unseasonably disturbed.
On, on we rushed - the
flames encircled us round - we were enveloped in clouds of stifling smoke -
crack, crash went the trees - a blazing stem fell across the line - the
fender of the engine pushed it aside - the flames hissed like tongues of
fire, and then, leaping like serpents, would rush up to the top of the
largest tree, and it would blaze like a pine-knot, There seemed no egress;
but in a few minutes the raging, roaring conflagration was left behind. A
forest on fire from a distance looks very much like 'Punch's' picture of a
naval review; a near view is the height of sublimity.
The dangers of the cars, to my inexperience, seemed by no means over with
the escape from being roasted alive. A few miles from Cleveland they
rushed down a steep incline, apparently into Lake Erie; but in reality
upon a platform supported on piles, so narrow that the edges of the cars
hung over it, so that I saw nothing but water.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 118 of 478
Words from 32168 to 32419
of 129941
