Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1861-02-08
Terrible Inuudution in Holland.

A correspondent of the London Daily
News, writing from Rotterdam on the 18th
january, describes aterrible inundatiOn which
had occurred in Holland:
& In the beginning of January it was OBJ.
served that the vast accumulatiOns of SNOW
in this district were causing the rise of the
river to a dangerous extent. With anxiety
and dread the inhabitants watched the daily
increase of the invading waters, now laden
with immense masses of ice, and strenuously
e1erted themselves to strengthen the resist
auce offered by those artificial barriers by
which alone Holland is preserved from total
submersisn. But still the food rose, and the
ice-masses formed themselves, as it were, into
huge battering-rams, pressing with their ire
;istible strength against the dykes and dams.
The sound Of the church bell, clear and omi-
nous in the frosty air, kept telling the sad
tale Of imminent danger, and warning all
who could labor, to aid in the good cause,
nd those who could not, to prepare for the
worst Higher and higher rose the waters,
and soon the surface of the ponderous SHIFT
ing ice-mass stood within half an inch of the
dyke-level Good God should it rise that
half inch higher, their cottages, their cattle,
their provisions, their all would bHcome a
prey to the unspsriug haVocl Then rose to
Heaven many prayer for help-for mercy
At last bulging out in the dyke directed the
anxious gaze of all to one spot-for the wa
ters were pressing hard upon it. With the
strength and energy Of despair they tried to
stay the progress Of the food as it sought
egress from its narrow channel into their fields
and dwellings. Xerxes as well tried to bind
the ocean in chains.
Suddenly the dyke yielded. and the waters
poured through-the ice-masses and the food
rose above it, and swept on in their terrific
course, submerging fields, barns and cottages,
drowning the cattle, destroying all. The
aged and the sick, the women and children,
sought refuge in their atties, where, be,
numbed with cold, without bedding, clothes,
fire or provisions, they had to pass days Of
inexpressible terror-of horrible starvation
For a long tine it Wes impossible to approach
them, and it is feared many a cottage has been
swept away in the food, and its inhabitants
frozen to death on the ice-masses. One fam
lily Of seven persons was rescued from the
attic in which they had sought shelter, so
thoroughly exhausted BY cold and hunger that
they could not even answer the questions of
their deliverers. A poor mother with her
infaLt, to which she had given premature
birth, was lying in bed in the bleak attic Of
her homely dwelling, while her husband,
from an aperture in the ROOT, sought, by cries
and signals, to attract the attention of a lew
brave men, who at the imminent risk Of
their lives, were endeaYoring to make their
way between the ice-blocks in order to rescue
some of their perishing fellow-creatures from
destruction. They went to the poor fellows
help, descended into the attic through the
aperture in the roof, through which they re-
turned, bringing with them the mother and
her babe It was time, for the waters had
already risen to within two inches OF her
bed.
Gas write, fresh intelligence arrives from
the inundated districts detailing additional
scenes of Wretchedness-people dying from
hunger and cold; their houses out away BY
the ice, as corn is mown down by the har-
yestsrs sythe; & church which has stood hun
dreds Of years swept down, as puf Of wind !
sweeps down q house Of cards; and the
prospect is even yet more fearful. Holland /
has often suffered much from foundations,
but never within the memory Of living man /
has inundation been accompanied with so /
much distress and destruction-with SO much /
heart-rending grief and despair.