, 1892-03-26

The nre OF great runs is terribly trying for
the nrst few minutes, but this feeling
gradually giyos way to ono OF awe and
sublimity.
There is something so terrific and ap-
pAling-you feel yourself so atomlosS In
comparison-that you would speak In
whispers II the roar should suddenly ease,
You are an ~onlooker; II assisting to work
q gun, physical activity would take away
ron the mental strain. When Admiral
Porter got his twenty mortar boats. zach
armed with an SS.ton mortar and n b
pound rifle cannon, at work against the
forts below New Orleans, and the big guns
In both forts had opened in reply, there
was something akin to the sound of heaven
and earth coming together. The mortar
shells weighed over 200 pounds apiece, and
the rush of them through the air made
ones hair feel as II It crawled The venom
thousands OF times, to be allowed by a
crash which seemed to split the sky open
into cracks and crevices.
When the firing had continued until all
reports had been merged into one steady
roar there was little short of an earth
quake on land or sea for ten miles around.
The earth shook as II n great steam ham
mer was pounding it a few yards from
your feet. II standing near a tree you
could feel the roots letting go of the soil
with a sound like bugs crawling over dry
leaves. On the water great mud spots
rose up here and there to show where the
earth forty feet below had been disturbed.
In the Mississippi river itself huge catfsh
leaped above the surface In fright and
palm or fioated belly up and were carried
along with the current gasping for breath.
Out on blue water air bubbles as large as
dining plates foated to the surface and
bursted with a snap, and fish Of all kinds
exhibited the greatest confusion and alarm
Thirty miles away the roar was like that
Of a gale sweeping over a pine forest
Horses and cattle sought to hide away,
birds few about uttering cries OF distress
and dogs pointed their noses toward the
sky and howled dismally. Birds and
fowls felt the air and earth waves long be-
fore human beings did, and their actions
were so queer as to become alarming. The
coming of the roar to those affair of was
preceded by a Earring OF the earth and a
moaning In the air. Springs overlooked
and the water in wells circled around rs in
a whirlpool The widest species OF birds
left the woods and thickets and came fly
ing about the houses, and rabbits deserted
their burrows and sought the companion
ship OF domestic animals The thunder
storms OF a score Of years combined could
not nave rent the heavens nor disturbed
the solid earth as that canonade did
II the beginning was painful and exas-
perating the ending was something to be
remembered for its grandeur. One mortar
after another, one great gun after another
was silenced by order. The reverberations
had travelled through air and earth and
water a distance OF fifty miles. They now
seemed to return back to the guns. The
rent and riven skies had kept up a con-
slant moaning and complaining. These
sound gradually died away, as a man in
pain finally drops off to sleep. The earth
resumed its solidity again, the sun shone
forth in its old familiar way and the bank
OF clouds piled up In the west and tinged
with gold all along their lower edges
seemed proof to the eye that the world still.
stood as we had lived in 1t the day before
those monsters awoke and demanded
human blood and wreck and destruction
as the price OF their silence.
NJ. QUAD.