The sky also looked dismally, and gave token that the
gale had not entirely passed away, though its violence had temporarily
abated. I advanced with deep interest by the peaked group of rocks, and
passed the wreck of a brig lying high and dry on the sand just before me.
The whole of the shore between the Heads, was strewed with her contents. I
never witnessed so total a wreck in so short a space of time. The violence
of the surf had completely beaten her sides out, leaving stem and stern
hanging together as by a thread, while her ribs and broken cordage and
sails, completed the picture, had any thing been wanting to perfect it. I
could moralize any day on a single bit of plank on a shore--each fragment
seems to tell its tale, and awakens a train of thoughts and feelings in
the mind; but "grim desolation" was here visibly before me.
Though I was early astir, I found that the prospect of booty had been
sufficiently powerful already to draw out not only the inhabitants of
Torwich, but great numbers of the neighbouring peasantry.
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