The authorities now devised plans for clearing away this ice-barrier,
which acted as an impediment to the flow of the river. They tried to
blow it up by means of dynamite, but all to no purpose; and it soon
became apparent that the danger to the capital was hourly on the
increase. At Pest the excitement and alarm became intense, for the
mighty waters were visibly and inexorably rising. We saw the steps of
the quay disappear one after another; then the whole subway of the
embankment became engulfed. Ominous cracks appeared in the asphaltic
promenade of the Corso, and the public were warned not to approach the
railings, lest they should give way bodily and fall over into the water,
which was lapping at the stonework. The "High-Water Commission" found it
necessary to close all the drains, and steam-pumps were brought into
requisition; the town was in fact besieged by water, and the enemy was
literally at the gates. The ordinary business of life was suspended. The
greeting in the street was not, "Good-day; how are you?" but, "What of
the Danube?" "Do you know the last reading of the register?" "Does the
water still rise?"
"Still rising"--this was always the answer. On the morning of the 23d
the river had risen upwards of two feet in twenty-four hours. Hundreds
of people now thought seriously of flight from the doomed city. There
was a complete exodus to the heights behind Buda. The suspension bridge
was crowded day and night by the citizens, carrying with them their
wives, their children, and a miscellaneous collection of valuables.
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