blown down by a frightful explosion in one of the Gateshead bonded
warehouses; that the dead and dying were lying about in hundreds, and
that, to crown everything, Tuthill Stairs Chapel had been destroyed.

It was indeed a tale of woe; and though my father promptly discounted it,
it was impossible to doubt, with the evidence of that flaming sky before
our eyes, that something very terrible had happened. Whether old Dixon
expected my father to act as an amateur fireman, or whether he hoped for
services of a more spiritual kind, I do not know; but he resolutely
refused to return to the scene of the disaster unless my father
accompanied him. So by-and-by my brother and I found ourselves
accompanying my father and the chapel-keeper on their way to the fire.

A strange spectacle it was which was presented to us. Thousands of
persons were hurrying down towards the river side; and upon their faces
shone the reflection of the glowing sky. By-and-by, as we came within
range of the effects of the explosion, we found broken windows and
shattered doorways on every side. It was not, however, until we reached
the High Level Bridge, and from the giddy height of the roadway looked
down upon the river and the two towns, that we realised the full extent
of the disaster which had happened so suddenly. To our right, as we stood
on the bridge, raged a fire of immense extent. The flames were roaring
upwards from one of the great bonded warehouses of Gateshead, and
threatening at every moment to attack the old parish church, which stood
like a rock strangely illumined in the glare; to our left, in the crowded
streets and alleys of the lower part of Newcastle, I counted no fewer
than seven fires burning fiercely in different places, whilst on the
river there were three ships in flames. It was wonderful to look up and
see burning sparks and fragments hurtling through air, resembling nothing
so much (I thought at the time) as a snowstorm every flake of which was a