THERE is no destroyer so rapid and so resistless as

floods of water. The ravages of fire are in comparison slow and even harmless. The mountain torrent is an enemy which no rampart can withstand. It beats down the weak and undermines the strong. Other assailants attack the surface only. The conflagra- tion, which crumbles the superstructure, spares the foundation— while it destroys the erection, it touches not the site ; but the rain-swollen river, in its unappeased rage, not content with level- ling the works of art, directs its vengeance equally against the works of nature. In the lapse of time and in the progress of im- provement, the place that once knew its lord may know his face no more ; but in the instantaneous changes consequent on the sapping and storming of an overwhelming flood, the failure of recognition is often mutual. The face of the landscape is altered as it were in the twinkling of an eye ; valleys are filled up, hills sub- side, long-remembered channels are dried up, plains are furrowed with unwonted courses, fertile fields are changed into lakes, lakes are converted into fields ; all that was permanent passes away, all that was constant suffers mutation ! Currents of water are, even in their silent and unobserved progress, the great modifiers of the i surface of the earth, although it is chiefly in their more violent movements that they have attracted the notice of philosophers and historians. The laws they obey and the phenomena they exhibit, on the great scale and the small, are similar ; and many of the forms into which we find the face of nature moulded, and for whose solution we are apt to have recourse to hypotheses of earthquakes and other extraordinary machinery, admit of an easy explanation to him who has carefully studied the limited operations of a local inundation. Of the many floods that have visited the more mountainous parts of our island, that which happened in August last in the North of Scotland seems to have been the most formidable ; and it has furnished Sir THOMAS DICK LAUDER with materials for one of the most interesting histories we ever read. The great out- pouring in Moray took place on the 3rd and 4th of August. There was what Sir THOMAS quaintly calls an " appendix " to it on the 27th, for it completed what the former had left unfinished ; but it was limited to one stream, the Nairn. The sources of the first and .great flood seem to have lain in the mountain range, called Cairngorum, in the west of Aberdeenshire. That part of the Spey which lies beyond Cairngorum remained undisturbed, while the lower portion, and all the streams, both north and south, that are fed by the springs which rise in the range or round it, were flooded. The rivers most affected were the Nairn, the Findhorn, the Lossie, and the Spey, to the north; the rise in the Don and • the Dee in the south was also great, and both the Esks were swollen, though in a less degree. The floods were not caused by water-spouts, or any extraordinary ministers of heaven's will, but by the simple operation of a rain, the drops of which, broken by the blast into exceedingly minute particles, "came down so thick that the very air itself seemed to be descending in one mass of water upon the earth." The quantity that fell was beyond all precedent. The rain-guage at Huntly Lodge marked 31 inches, from five o'clock in the morning of August 3rd to five o'clock in the morning of August 4th,—about one-sixth part of the quantity of a year's rain, calculated on an average of the previous eight years. The power of such an enormous quantity of water de- scending upon a surface of many miles, when accumulated be- tween the sides of a narrow valley or the banks of a river, may be more easily conceived than described. Some of the streams rose twenty, thirty, some of them fifty feet above their ordinary level. The drains which have been made all over the country, Sir THOMAS remarks, tend to produce rapid floods ; but the effects of such a rain as that of the 3rd August 1829, could hardly have been materially augmented or diminished by drains, or the absence of them.

We may remark, before making any extracts from the volume before us, that the •ingenious author takes each stream at its source—traces its course downward—shows, in his very accurate description, which is rendered more striking by a series of cuts that illustrate it, the appearance of the country before the flood came, and its appearance after it had passed—and intermixes the whole with numerous anecdotes, melancholy and mirthful, of the adventures of the fateful day. His book has all the interest of a well-told tale, with the remarkable advantage, that it is all true. For there is no pathos or humour, nothing wonderful or striking in the drawings of fiction, that is not far excelled by the powerful pencil of mother Nature. The novelist does not rise more above the commonplaces of human life' than Nature when under the in- fluence of strong excitement does above the conceptions of the novelist. We shall look in vain through the pages of the most in- genious fiction for a scene of interest so intense as that of poor Cruikshanks. The shrill cry over the waste of water, striking at intervals on the ear of his anxious wife, pacing the strand and praying for the day, is one of those incidents that the inventors of the terrible may injure by an attempt to improve, but which no fertility of invention would have enabled them to create. The fate of.Cruickshanks was noted at the time,. and perhaps some of our readers may recollect the fact (for we-recorded it) of • An Account of the Great Floods of August 1829, in the province of Moray, and adjoining districts. By Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. of Fountainhall, F.R.S.E. Edinburgh, km a man who was swept away by the waters after having been forced to take shelter on a tree in the midst of them ; but the appalling details were not known before the author of this volume narrated them. Cruickshanks was innkeeper of the village of Charleston of Aberlour, on the Spey. A dancing party had been convened in his little mansion the previous evening ; and the mirth of the land- lord was so extreme as to attract the painful attention and to awaken the superstitious fears of his wife. " Surely our good man is daft the day," was her observation to one of the guests ; " I ne'er saw him dance at sic a rate. Lord grant he binnafey.*" When the tributary burn that passes Charleston began to swell, Cruick- shanks, who had some timber lying on its banks, requested the assistance of two neighbours to drag it out of danger ; but the waters increased so rapidly that they were fain to abandon the task, and escaped with great difficulty. Every entreaty was em- ployed to prevail on him also to quit the raft on which he was floating ; but, proud of his skill as a floater, he mocked at the fears of his advisers ; and when his own were at length excited, it was too late to hearken to their counsel. In an attempt to push through the current, his guiding-pole was torn from his grasp, and the raft sped down the stream like an arrow from the string. We shall give the rest in the words of the author.

" At the point where the burn met the river, in the ordinary state of both, there grew some trees, now surrounded by deep and strong cur. rents, and far from the land. The raft took a direction towards one of these ; and seeing the wide and tumultuous waters of the Spey before him, in which there was no hope that his loosely-connected logs could stick one moment together, he coolly prepared himself, and, collecting all his force into one well-timed and well-directed effort, he sprang, caught a tree, and clung among its boughs, whilst the frail raft, hurried away from under his foot, was dashed into fragments, and scattered on the bosom of the waves. A shout of joy arose from his anxious friends, for they now deemed him safe ; but he uttered no shout in return. Every nerve was strained to procure help. " A boat !" was the general cry, and some ran this way and some that, to endeavour to procure one. It was now between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. A boat was speedily obtained from Mr. Gordon of Aberlour ; and, though no one there was very expert in its use, it was quickly manned by people eager to save Cruickshanks from his perilous situation. The current was too ter- rible about the tree, to admit of their nearing it, so as to take him di- rectly into the boat ; but their object was to row through the smoother water, to such a distance as might enable them to throw a rope to him, by which means they hoped to drag him to the boat. Frequently did they attempt this, and as frequently were they foiled, even by that which was considered as the gentler part of the stream, for it hurried them past the point whence they wished to make the cast of their rope, and com- pelled them to row up again by the side, to start on each fresh adventure. Often were they carried so much in the direction of the •tree, as to be compelled to exert all their strength to pull themselves away from him they would have saved, that they might avoid the vortex that would have caught and swept them to destruction. And often was poor Cruickshanks tantalized-with the approach of help, which came but to 'add, to the other miseries of his situation, that of the bitterest disappointment. Yet he bore all calmly. In the transient glimpses they had of him, as they were driven past him, they saw no blenching on his dauntless counte- nance,—they heard no reproach, no complaint, no sound, but an occa- sional short exclamation of encouragement to persevere in their friendly endeavours. But the evening wore on, and still they were unsuccessful. It seemed to them that something more than mere natural causes was operating against them. His hour is come!' said they, as they regarded one another with looks of awe; ' our struggles are vain.' The courage and the hope which had hitherto supported them began to fail, and the descending shades of night extinguished the last feeble sparks of both, and put an end to their endeavours. " Fancy alone can picture the horrors that must have crept on the un- fortunate man, as, amidst the impenetrable darkness which now prevailed, he became aware of the continued increase of the flood that roared around him, by its gradual advance towards his feet, whilst the rain and the tempest continued to beat more and more dreadfully upon him. That these were long ineffectual in shaking his collected mind, we know from the fact, afterwards ascertained, that he actually wound up his watch while in this dreadful situation. But, hearing no more the occasional passing exclamations of those who had been hitherto trying to succour him, he began to shout for help in a voice that became every moment more long-drawn and piteous, as, between the gusts of the tempest, and borne over the thunder of the waters, it fell from time to time on the ears of his clustered friends, and rent the heart of his distracted wife. Ever and anon it came, and hoarser than before, and there was an occa- sional wildness in its note, and now and then a strange and clamorous repetition for a time, as if despair had inspired him with an unnatural energy. But the shouts became gradually shorter,—less audible, and less frequent,—till at last their eagerly listening ears could catch them no longer. ' Is he gone ?'—was the half-whispered question they put to one another, and the smothered responses that were muttered around, but too plainly told how much the fears of all were in unison. " What was that ?' cried his wife in delirious scream,—' That was his whistle I heard !'—She said truly. A shrill whistle, such as that which is given with the fingers in the mouth, rose again over the loud din of the deluge, and the yelling of the storm. He was not yet gone. His voice was but cracked by his frequent exertions to make it heard, and he had now resorted to an easier mode of transmitting to his friends the certainty of his safety. For some time his unhappy wife drew hope from such con- siderations, but his whistles, as they came more loud and prolonged, pierced the ears of his foreboding friends like the ill-omened cry of some warning spirit ; and it may be matter of question whether all believed that the sounds they heard were really mortal. Still they came louder and clearer for a brief space ; but at last they were heard no more, save in his frantic wife's fancy, who continued to start as if she still heard them, and to wander about, and to listen, when all but herself were satis- fied that she could never hear them again."

The body was found next day lying in a haugh,t some four or . five miles down the river. The fact of his winding . up his watch at the same hour that he usually did, marks how completely the unfortunate man possessed his presence of mind, under circum,- 'stances where it might well have failed the most resolute.

* Fated—doomed. It is a very common opinion in Scotland, that an extravagance of joy generally precedes and betokens some terrible disaster to the party. t A field by the side of a stream, formed by alluvial deposits. The plunder of the flood was miscellaneous. From Mrs. Cruick- shanks it bore away a husband ; from Widow Shanks, it bore away the last and dearest remembrance of a husband who had been many years before removed by a hand not less potent, though less fearful.

"The haugh above the bridge of Lower Craigellachie was very much Cut up; and the house and nursery at the south end of the arch are gone. The widow of . James Shanks, amidst the loss of her fur- niture, house, and her son's garden ground, lamented nothing so much as her deceased husband's watch, and his fiddle, on the strings of which hung many a tender recollection. That fiddle, the dulcet strains of which

had come over her like the sweet south breathing upon a bed of violets,' stealing the tender affections of her virgin heart, breathing they all centered on her Orpheus, Mr. James Shanks ; that fiddle, to the sprightly notes of which she had so often jerked out her youthful limbs, and whirled round in the wild pirouette of the Highland fling, to the animating tune of Bog-an.Lochan ; that fiddle, in fine, which had been the fiddle of her fancy, from the heyday of her youth upwards, was gone with the water, and was now, for aught she knew to the contrair, in Norrawa or Denmark 1' The grief of Mrs. Shanks for the loss of this valued violin was more than I shall attempt to paint. Great artists often envelop the heads of their chief mourners in drapery, from a conscious inability to do justice to the passion; and so must I hide the lachrymose head of Mrs. Shanks. And bow indeed shall I describe her joy, some days afterwards, when an idle loon, who had been wandering about the banks of the river findin' things,' as he said himself, appeared before her astonished and delighted eyes, with the identical fiddle in his hand ? The yell of Mrs. Shanks was said, by those who heard it, to resemble the wild shriek with which her husband was wont to inspire additional fury into the heels of the dancers, already excited by the power of his wonderful bow hand. She kissed and hugged the fiddle, and, as if its very contact had music in it, she laid hands on the astonished loon, and went a full round of the floor with him, ending with a fling that surprised every one. The fiddle had been found in the neighbourhood of Arndilly, whither it had merrily floated on the bosom of the waves. But what was infinitely more extraordinary,Ithe watch, which had hung in a small bag, suspended by a nail to a post of her bed, was found,—watch, bag, post, and all,—near Fochabers, eight or ten miles below, and was safely restored to its overjoyed owner."

We have already mentioned one extraordinary instance of pre- sence of mind in a sufferer on the brink of eternity ; but Sir THoMAs's book is full of instances of coolness and calculation, such as perhaps no other country could supply. On the same fatal night the mill of Garmouth was tenanted by two individuals, the miller and his man ; Mrs. Scott and her daughters had re- moved in the course of the afternoon. The boatman, who went to relieve the old man, rowed round and round the mansion with- out being able to perceive anyhuman being ; and it was only when i a portion of the building fell, very nearly involving the boat in the ruins, that the head of its master was seen through the roof, and his voice was heard entreating assistance. His account is ex- tremely characteristic.

" We got up on a table on ane o' the beds, and syne on chairs aboon the table, till we proppit oursels up to the ceilin' o' the hoose. Ilka ither thing was floatin' aboot. The water was full five feet deep, an' mysel' but Eve and a haulf, an' the loon * five feet high. I was hearin' the rummel o' the oot hooses as they war fa'in', an' sae I began to be frightit that the farrest up end o' our fire-hoose might tummel doon an' kill us baith. So mysel' and the loon got a haud o' a rope, and swung wi' the help o' it to a bed at the ither end o' the hoose, whar there was nae ceilin', an' we had hardly gotten there, wi' the Providence o' God, whan the upper end o' the hoose that we had left gied way, an' cam' doon wi' sic an awfu' rum- mel that my heart lap to my mouth wi' fright. I thought surely the end we war in wad gang neist. But whan I put my head oot o' the roof, an' saw a' the hooses in ruins, an' spied the boat, I trow I praised the Lord for our salvation. What think ye o' my swine, only sax months auld. Ane o' them sweemed doon to the bar, an' then four miles east, through the sea to Port Gordon,.whar' the poor beast landed safe, an' I sauld him there. Ither three o' them took a sea voyage five miles to the vast, an' landed at the Blackhill. See thae them i' the sty there.t A' my furniture was ruined, an' I thought I wad ha'e been ruined too, if no killed or drooned. But wi' some lash I got a hand o' my watch, an' my bit pickters4 an' some ither usefu' papers, and rowed them i' my napkin, an' pat them aboot my throat. I thought whan the water should come there, I wad soon ha'e ate need o' them. But feggs I saved them that way' " It may be thought incredible, but from Mr. Scott's account it appears that he actually slept for some time during that awful night ! The patient resignation of the sufferers, as described by Sir THOMAS LAUDER, is exceedingly touching. Not a single instance is recorded of unmanly complaint, not one of repining; there are no poor mouths, no whining or clamorous appeals. An honest and industrious shopman had placed himself down at the bridge of Campdale, on the small river Alien. His stock in trade, his furni- ture, his house, garden, every thing, was utterly. ruined. Sir THOMAS visited this previously thriving family a short time after its disasters, and found the mistress of it wandering tentless about the ruined walls of her once happy home.

" It was about six o'clock on Monday night, that the flood cam' on us in ten minutes time,' said she, an' we had eneuch ado to escape to the brae-side. It took eight o' the stoutest men in the hail country, wi' the risk o' their lives, to get oot my kist.§ We syne saw the waters rise ower the eaves o' our thatch, an' that wus the way that a' thing wus till ten o'clock neist mornin', when we cam' back, an' fund that a' the sma' kin- kind o' articles had been floated oot at a back wundo. But waur nor a' that, the hail o' Tam's goods, tea, sugar, an' siclike, war a' gane ; an' the sugar a' meltit ! A hunder pound wudna mak' it up till us. An' oor Comfortable hoos, too, see hoo its ruined, an' it biggit but twa years ago; an' the gairden new taen in; • an' a' destroyed, as ye see ! But it's the Lord's wull, an' we maun submit. An' syne, the wee pickle furniture

• that wus saved, Tam an' me, we grew sae frightit that when we saw the Awen begud to rise on the twenty-seven, he wud try to get it across the R Servant. " t These well-authenticated instances of swine swimming to distances so wan- derftd, quite contradicts the popular error, that, when thrown into the water, they speedily destroy themselves by cutting their throats with their own feet." t Meaning his bank-notes." I Chest.

water. Weel, he buckles it a' thegither on a raft, pits a tow • til't, an' tries to pu' them to the tither side, when, just as they are i' the midds o' the water, whup ! doun she comes, like the side o' a hill, breaks the rope, an' aff they a' gaed to the sea ! An' see, noo, sir, the hoos is as bare as a barn, an' a sand an' weet I Oor bit comfortable house!' " " It is the will of the Lord ! " seems indeed to have been the reflection, at once pious and consolatory, of every one of the hum- ble sufferers. Of all the examples, however, of sturdy good sense and unflinching perseverance, the most remarkable is that of Cly, the miller of Tomore, of whom Sir THOMAS has favoured us with a very characteristic portrait. " John Cly, the meal-miller of Tomore, a sturdy, hale, independent-minded old man of seventy-five, has been singularly persecuted by floods ; having suffered by that of 1768, and by three or four inundations since, but es- pecially by that of 1783, when his house and mill were carried away, and he was left pennyless. He was not a little affected by that calamity which fell upon him and on no one else ; but his indomitable spirit got the better of every thing. About seven years ago he undertook to improve a piece of absolute beach, of two acres, entirely covered with enormous stones and gravel. But John knew that a deep rich soil lay below, buried there by the flood of 1768. He removed the stones with immense labour, formed them into a bulwark and enclosure round the field, trenched down the gravel to the depth of four or five feet, and brought up the soil, which afterwards produced most luxuriant crops. His neighbours ridiculed his operations while they were in progress, saying that he would never have a crop there. Do ye see these ashen trees ?' said John, pointing to some vigorous saplings growing near, are they no thriving ?' It was impos- sible to deny that they were. Well,' continued John, if it wunna pro- duce corn, I'll plant it wi' ash trees, and the laird, at least, will hae the benefit.' The fruits of all John's labours were swept away by the direful flood of the 3rd of August. But pride of his heart, as this improvement had been, the flood was not able to sweep away his equanimity and philo- sophy together with his acres. When some one condoled with him on his loss, I took it frae the Awen,' said he, with emphasis, and let the Awen hae her ain again.' And, when a gossiping tailor halted at his door one day, charitably to bewail his loss, he cut him short, by pithily remarking, Well ! if I have lost my croft, I have got a fish-pond in its place, where I can fish independent of any one' After the year 1743, he built his house on a rock, that showed itself from under the soil at the base of the bank, bounding the glen of the burn. During the late flood the water was dashing up at his door, and his sister, who is older than he, having expressed great terror, and proposed that they should both fly for it; ' What's the woman afeard o' ?' cried John, impatiently, hae we not baitli the rock o' nature an' the Rock o' Ages to trust till ?—We'll not stir one fit I' John's first exertion after the flood was to go down to Bal. lindalloch, to assist the Laird in his distress. There he worked hard for three days, before Mr. Grant discovered that he had left his own haystack buried to the top in sand, and insisted on his going home to disinter it. When Mr. Grant talked to him of his late calamity, Odd, Sir,' said he, ' I dinna regaird this matter hauf sae muckle as I did that slap i' the aughty-three, for then I was, in a manner, a marked man. Noo we're a' sufferin' thegither, an' I'm but neebourlike' " The number of hairbreadth 'scapes, it may be imagined, were great. One family, named Smith, who dwelt in a furzy level near the Flndhorn, were early surrounded. Their condition, as seen by the aid of a telescope from the mansion of Mr. Suter of Seapark, about ten.-o'clock in the morning, is thus graphically given :— " They were huddled together on a spot of ground a few feet square, some forty or fifty yards below their inundated dwelling. He was some- times standing and sometimes sitting on a small cask, and, as the be- holders 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. Above a score of sheep were standing around, or wading or swimming in the shallows. Three cows and a small horse, pickily-, at a broken of straw that seemed to be half afloat, ware also groupeil with the family."

They were saved, but with extreme difficulty, by means of a boat. Another family, of the name of Kerr, had, at an early period of the flood, attempted to escape ; but Kerr's niece, a girl of twelve years of age, began to sink ; and it was by great exertion that he got her and the rest back to the spot they had abandoned. They remained in the garret until nearly two o'clock in the morning; when they made their way into the next house in the row, which had been previously deserted, the roof of their own threatening to tumble in upon them. They remained in the second house until they anticipated a similar disaster, and then broke through the thatch for the purpose of quitting it. " We sync crawled out ower the tap o' the mist hoose,' said Kerr, in telling his own story, and, on our way, Jean's leg geed throw an awfu) gap atween the lumm t and the roof. I then thocht to try Meggy Ross's wunda in the front, but Jean wudna' lat me, for fear I might fa' i' the water, an' sync she thought a' wad be lost. 1 then geed to the back, and triedto get into Hugh's, but I wusna' fit to break the kebbers t o't; an' it was as wed, for a pant o'it soon fell. I then teuk for the grun', and drappit down on a wee bit spat, where I fand an auld cupple log, which Hugh had bought for fire. I heezed it up. There was a hunnin pin in t, and that was like a stap, and sae I gat them doon, praised be the Lord! I then brak Hugh's back winda, and we gat in. Hugh's twa kists war soomin' through the room like onything. There was a cauf bed and some claes there, and that keepit huz something warm ; and, as soon as it was some clear, Jean wadna bide in, for fear o' the house fa'in'. When we saw the boat first, we thocht it was for huz; but what was our thocht when we saw it whurlin' awa doon the water again !" Did you pray at all ? ' demanded Mr. Suter. Deed, sir, I dinna ken fat we did ; but fan we heard the hooses fa'in' aboot huz, and it sae dark, troth we could na think o' ony thing but death' " In a house on the banks of the Findhorn, there were no other inmates than a feeble elderly woman, and her aged and bedridden aunt. When the boat drew near to the rescue of these two miser- able creatures, they discovered, to their horror, the dead body of the old woman in the arms of the younger one, who, placed as she was up to, the neck in water, and scarcely sensible, must in .a very

• Rope.T% t Chimney. :ram

few hours have followedher aged relation. The narrative of,thiS woman is powerful in its simplicity ; and, amidst all the difficulties of a provincial dialect, will find a way to the sympathy of every intelligent reader.

" It was about eight o'clock, an' my aunty in her bed, fan* I says till her, Aunty, the waters are cumin' aboot's ; an' I had hardly spoken fan

they wur at my back. Gang to my kist,' says she to me, and tak oot some things that are to be pit aboot me fan I'm dead.' I had hardly tukken oot the ekes fan the kist was floated bodalie through the boos. ' Gie me a hand o' your hand, Bell,' says my aunty, 'an' I'll try an' help ye into the bed." Ye're use fit to help me,' says L ' I'll tak a haud o' the stoop o' the bed.' And sae I gat in. I think we war strugglin' i' the bed for aboot twa hours ; and the water floatit up the cauf-bed, andshelyin' on't. Syne I tried to keep her up, an' I took a hand o' her shift to try to keep

her life in. But the waters war ay growin. At last I got her up ae hand to my brcest, and hed a baud o' the post o' the bed wi' the ether. An' there wuz ae jaw o' the water thateam' up to my breest, an' anither

jaw cam' and fuppiti- my aunty oot o' my airms. Oh ! Bell, I'm gane 1' says she; and the waters just chokit her. It wuz a dreadfu' sight to see her 1 That roux the fight and struggle she• had for life ! Willin' wus she to save that ! An' her haun', your honor ! boo she fought wi' that haun' ! It wad hae drawn tears o' pity frae a heathen! An' then I had a dreedfu' spekalation for my ain life, an' I canna tell the con- seederahle moments I was doon in the water, an' my aunty abeen me. The strength o' the waters at last brak the bed, an' I got to the tap o't; an' a dreadfu' jaw knockit my head to the bed-post ; an' I wuz for some time oot o' my senses. It was surely the death grip I had o' the post ; an' surely it wuz the Lord that waukened me, for the dead sleep had cum'd on me, an' I wed hae faun, and been droont in the waters ! After I cam' to mysel' a wee, I felt something at my fit, an' I says to my- sel', this is my aunty's head that the waters hae torn aff ! I felt wi' my ban', an' tuk baud o't wi' fear an' trumlin' ; an' thankfu'veas I fan I faund it to be naething but a droon't hen I Aweel, I climbed up, an' got a baud o' the cupple, an' my fit on the tap o' the wa', an' susteened myself that way frae maybe aboot half-past ten that night till three next after- neen. I suppose it wuz twelve o'clock o' the day before I saw my aunty again, after we had gane doon thegither, an' the dreadfu' ocean about uz, just like a roarin' sea. She was left on a bank o' sand, leanin' on her side, and her mouth was fou o' san'. Fouk wondered I didna dee o' cauld an' hunger; but be.ith cauld an' hunger ware unkent by me, wi' the terrification I wuz in wi' the roarin' o' the waters aboot me, Lord save me ! "

The losses of furniture, even to those who lost nothing else, were particularly heavy. Some small matters, like Mrs. Shanks's fiddle, were recovered, but the greater number were gone for once and for aye. The wife of Smith, whom we have already men- tioned, greatly lamented a tub full of clothes. " It sailed oot at the door," she said, "and was whamled afore my very two e'en." The labour that had been expended on it, seems to have occa- sioned to the good woman as much regret as the linen. Had it been dirty—but to lose both the clothes and the washing—to have so much lash for nothing, was doubly distressing. This consideration seems, indeed, to have affected more persons than Mrs. Smith. " I lost," said a herd boy, reverting to the disasters of the day, "two shirts, ane o' them was clean too I" The small sum of 1,4001. was collected for the purpose of assist- ing in some degree the number of poor families—about 700— that had suffered. It is now proposed to raise a few pounds for the purpose of rewarding the brave individuals that were most active in snatching their fellow-creatures from destruction. To each of them it is proposed to present a medal, commemorative of the disasters of the 3rd of August, and of their honourable share in it. Among the persons who particularly distinguished them- selves on the occasion, DONALD Moxito seems to have attracted and deserved much attention. Mr. SUTER describes the exertions of this gallant and active fellow—Yellow-waistcoat he calls him, from the colour of his garments—as beyond all praise. We hope this mention of his excellent conduct may procure for him, from some friend to bravery and humanity who has the means as well as the will, some more substantial reward than an honorary medal. Subscriptions for the medal are, we observe, received by Messrs. SMITH and ELDER, of Cornhill. We wish the scheme every pos- sible success : and we now quit the history of the floods in Moray with many thanks to Sir THOMAS DICE: LAUDER for a most amusing and instructive volume.

*Man. It is common in this part of the country to substitute f for zok. f Snatched.