JUST as I was thinking of the pleasure, dear young friends, of resuming our monthly chats on the wonders of water, to tell you, as I promised last month, about the beauties and striking facts connected with rivers, lakes, and cataracts, the wires flash over the whole earth the appalling news that water, that same beautiful water, has assumed the form of a grim, terrible, vengeful, devastating monster, has swept away one of the large cities of the world, spreading havoc, destruction, misery, and death in its course; rendering homeless, and robbing of every earthly thing seventy thousands of men, women, and children, and filling every tender heart with sadness and sorrow. And so this calamity has turned my thoughts from the beautiful to the distressing. You look with delight on the bright little stream, like dewdrops, trickling along its pebbly course, which with your finger you could divert this way or that. A little further on it becomes a mill-stream, and with perfect ease man makes it his willing servant, it turns the stones which grind his corn. Or he digs a trench, like the Suez canal, turns the water of the sea into it, and floats through the desert his largest ships, and so saves thousands of miles of slow and dangerous sailing, Or by irrigation, he scatters that water over the surface of the desert itself, and forthwith the wilderness blossoms as a fruitful plain. Or man conducts it for miles, stores it up in immense reservoirs, and keeping it for months he carries it at pleasure to hundreds of thousands of houses, and daily, as in London, supplies the wants of four millions of people. Nay, man builds his great ships, floats them upon the mighty ocean, and dares the tempest and the storm. More still, man produces steam from that very water, which becomes the mightiest power yet known, and by its use, setting the winds at defiance, he traverses the sea as on dry land—and accomplishes the most wonderful works the world has ever known. Truly water is a beautiful thing, and when under control a most useful servant.
But this fearful calamity at Szegeden is a fresh illustration of its terribly devastating power, and of man's utter impotency to check its course when once let loose. It is a calamity that will stand side by side with the destruction of Pompeii and Lisbon; and it may well make us all feel what a ruin the fairest scene in this poor world might become.
Get your maps, and trace the Danube which empties into the Black Sea. One of its great tributaries, coming down from the north, is the Theiss, enlarged by the junction of the Maros. Just below this junction, built on low ground, stood Szegeden, an ancient town of 70,000 or 80,000 people, and one of the largest grain centers in Europe. Both those rivers have their rise in snow-covered mountains to the north and east.
The long winter had brought a great deposit of snow, very little of which had melted till the first warm days of March. This warm weather, together with heavy rains, suddenly melted vast quantities of snow, and there descended into the valleys of the Theiss and the Maros a prodigious mass of water, filling both channels, which run through an almost level plain. The whole country above the junction appeared like an unbroken sea pouring its slow but deep current towards Szegeden. This town has always been in danger, and for many years has been protected by a strong embankment, supplemented by a second rampart of earth, and by an immense wall, on which was built a railway.
At last, however, though for a hundred years it has defied its foe, its total destruction has come. The cry of alarm sounded throughout Europe. The whole population turned out to work like beavers on their great dyke; immense bodies of soldiers, and every able-bodied man, for eight long days and dismal nights, kept up a terrible fight with their dreaded foe, piling up sand bags and trying to keep the ramparts above the rising tide. Boats full of willing helpers flocked from all parts to aid in the battle. Think, young friends, of the terrible anxiety and fright of those thousands of women and dear little children during that eight days' battle. Again and again the floods made a breach, and no doubt the cry would spread like lightning, "It is all over, we are lost," but again and again were they dammed up by the despairing struggles of the men. On March 11, it was a question of an inch or two between safety and utter ruin, but the cheering news that the rivers above were falling brings welcome hopes, and with redoubled vigor on they work, felling down trees, and piling them up with clay bags. Alas! On the afternoon of that day an easterly wind arose and Szegeden was lost. The vast expanse of water lashed up into foaming waves overleaped the first embankment, soon beat down the second, and the railway wall, and a little past midnight the tocsin sounds the alarm through the city. The whole population, well knowing that all is over, frantically rush to any elevated spot. Some seek strong buildings, others take to boats, but who shall describe the heart-rending scenes of that fatal night? On rushes the flood, houses and streets melt away, and at the moment I write this but a few hundred feet of dry land and a few houses remain, and it is feared even they may be swept away.
I trust every one of my young readers has had his or her heart moved to pity and to prayer by this terrible suffering. No doubt all will be done that can be. Food and tents, and clothing and money, will pour in from all parts of Europe, but hundreds, perhaps thousands, have perished, and many more will suffer from it to the end of life.
How true is the word of God, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”
This world has witnessed many such calamities.
Shall I tell of a few. Just fifteen years before to the very day, there was a terrible one near Sheffield. A large reservoir had just been constructed by throwing up a high embankment between two hills, about six miles above Sheffield. Scarcely was it finished and filled, when, as at Szegeden, a high wind beat the water furiously against the embankment; first came a small crack and then a wide breach, and in an instant, and at midnight too, the furious element was surging through the valley, tearing up and hurling along immense rocks, sweeping down every mill and house in its headlong course, spreading devastation and death for many miles. It was worse for the poor cottagers and mill hands than for the people of Szegeden. There was no previous warning, no tocsin to sound the alarm, all were quietly sleeping in their beds, when suddenly their homes were struck as by an unknown power, and men, women, and dear little children found themselves being hurled they knew not where, or by what; and without time for a cry or a prayer, about three hundred were plunged into eternity.
A few days after, I stood on that fatal embankment by that empty reservoir, gazing on that dreadful chasm through which the waters had poured, and then followed its course from village to village; and, oh children, it was a sight, a scene of desolation, never to be forgotten! In every village they were burying their dead, and the thousands who came from all quarters, seemed to realize what a world of ruin we are in.
History, ancient and modern, abounds with such calamities, far more interesting and instructing, too, than the most exciting novels. Sometimes vast lakes have been formed by a narrow gorge getting filled up with great rocks, or even with masses of ice brought down by the water. These sooner or later either melt or get undermined, when of course an immense and destructive flood is the result. In the year 1818, such a deluge took place in Val de Bagnes, one of the great valleys of the Rhone, about forty miles above the Lake of Geneva. Immense masses of ice, falling from a glacier choked up a narrow gorge to the height of hundred feet. Soon a great lake containing 800 millions of cubic feet of water was accumulated. The danger of this breaking away was at once seen, and to avoid this calamity the ice was tunneled to let off the water gradually. But, alas! they reckoned not the power of their foe. In three days the whole barrier was swept away, and the fury of the raging flood and the mighty power with which it swept away rocks cannot be described. Village after village fell in its course, leaving behind it the wreck of houses and of furniture, thousands of trees torn up by the roots, and the bodies of men and of animals which it had swept away.
It is thought that in far back ages the upper part of the Mississippi valley was one vast lake sustained by one of these narrow gorges. By some convulsion this gorge was swept away, and perhaps in a few hours a great inland sea rushed with inconceivable violence down the Mississippi valley into the Gulf of Mexico, and the site thereof became a fertile valley. In like manner if the bed of the Niagara Falls were to be worn away but for a few miles more it would empty the vast lakes of Erie, Ontario, Michigan, and Superior. Should such an event suddenly occur, who can conceive of the fearful destruction that would inevitably follow along the whole valley of the St. Lawrence? The downfall of Szegeden would be insignificant compared with that.
Only one more circumstance connected with floods can I now mention to you. The great city of St. Petersburgh stands on an extremely low and flat delta formed by the islands of the Neva, which flows into the Gulf of Finland. No part is more than twelve or fourteen feet above the level of the sea, so that a rise of fifteen feet would flood the whole city, and a rise of thirty feet is enough to drown almost every human being. Now it is well known that strong westerly winds from the gulf drive back the descending water from the Neva several feet high. At other times the river is flooded by the melting of snow and breaking up of ice. It is confidently asserted that if ever three things should occur at the same time nothing could save St. Petersburgh. Should there be very strong westerly winds from the Gulf of Finland, and high water, and the breaking up of the ice at the same moment, St. Petersburgh, after suddenly rising up like a fairy city from the swamps of Finland, might be entirely swept away in twenty-four hours!