I shall never forget their looks of mute
despair; there was no crying, no noise, their very silence was a gauge
of the utter misery that had befallen them.
The sea of trouble in which we found ourselves was strewn with wreckage
of all kinds, including the bodies of many domestic animals. Doubtless
many lives were lost; it will perhaps never be known how many. It was
unfortunate that no service was organised for saving life at the
bridges. Several lamentable accidents and loss of life took place owing
to the drifting away of boats and barges up stream. A friend of mine saw
a barge with four men on board jammed in between blocks of ice, and
hurried under the suspension bridge and down the stream. No one was able
to respond to the heart-rending appeals of the men, who very probably
might have been saved if simply ropes had been hanging from the bridge.
I myself saw a poor fellow perish in those churning waters; it was
terrible to think of his thus drowning in the presence of thousands of
fellow-creatures.
The amount of wreckage that passed Buda-Pest gave one some idea of the
frightful amount of damage higher up the stream; there were heaps of
barrels, woodstacks, trees, furniture, and even houses with their
chimneys standing!
The beautiful island of St. Marguerite, just above Buda-Pest, suffered
most severely. It was four feet under water; and the drift ice did
immense damage to the trees, causing abrasions of the bark at eight to
ten feet above the ground.
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