Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and
boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on the other,
the carts, etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were
strewed with movables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both
people and what goods they could get away. Oh, the miserable and calamitous
spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the
foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration. All the
sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light seen
above forty miles round about for many nights.

God grant my eyes may never behold the like, now seeing above ten thousand
houses all in one flame; the noise, and cracking, and thunder of the
impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people,
the fall of towers, houses, and churches was like a hideous storm, and the
air all about so hot and inflamed that at last one was not able to approach
it; so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on,
which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds
of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation, near fifty miles in
length. Thus I left it this afternoon burning, a resemblance of Sodom or
the last day. London was, but is no more!

4. The burning still rages, and it has now gotten as far as the Inner
Temple, all Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane,
Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Street, now flaming, and most of it reduced
to ashes; the stones of St. Paul's flew like granados, the melting lead
running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with
fiery redness, so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them, and the
demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help could be applied.
The eastern wind still more impetuously drove the flames forward. Nothing