The very skies of Heaven were hung with the black drapery of the grave; for never since, nor within the memory of man before it, did the clouds present shapes of such gloomy and funereal import.

Hearses, coffins, long funeral processions, and all the dark emblems of mortality were reflected, as it were, on the sky, from the terrible work of pestilence and famine, which was going forward on the earth beneath them.

To all this, the thunder and lightning too, were constantly adding their angry peals, and flashing, as if uttering the indignation of Heaven against our devoted people; and what rendered such fearful manifestations ominous and alarming to the superstitious, was the fact of their occurrence in the evening and at night--circumstances which are always looked upon With unusual terror and dismay.
To any person passing through the country, such a combination of startling and awful appearances was presented as has probably never been witnessed since.

Go where you might, every object reminded you of the fearful desolation that was progressing around you.

The features of the people were gaunt, their eyes wild and hollow, and their gait feeble and tottering.