Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/150

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144
ANNALS OF THE

where resided three families of comparative comfort; but their comforts were threatened most fearfully by the dreadful scourge; fever was everywhere, and hunger indeed had filled a grave-yard, which lay at the foot of a mountain, so full that scarcely any distinction could be seen of graves, but now and then a stick at the head or foot of one. By the road-side a family of four or five had made a temporary shelter, waiting for a son to die, whom they had brought some miles across the mountains, that he might be buried in a grave-yard where the dogs would not find him, as there was a wall about this. He died of consumption, and the family were fed while there, and then went away when they had buried their boy. The family of Samuel Bourne were the most comfortable, but they had a burden like an incubus, with the mass of starving creatures. Mr. Carey, the Coast Guard, was kind, and his wife and daughters patterns of industry and attention to the poor; but with limited means, what could they do to stay the plague? Everything that could be eaten was sought out and devoured, and the most hazardous attempts were made to appease hunger by the people. This coast has some of the greatest objects of curiosity; and so long have the inhabitants been accustomed to look at them, that they walk fearlessly upon the dangerous precipices, and even descend them to the sea, in search of eggs, which the sea-gulls deposit there, in the sides of the cliffs. Two women presumptuously descended one of these cliffs, not far from Mr. Carey's, in search of sloke, which is gathered from the sea. They, in