Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/93

 A solemn thanksgiving for the removal of the cholera was read, and was rendered very impressive by the fact that most of the congregation were in new mourning. The Angel of Death had long hovered over the doomed city, which lost rather more than a tenth of its population from a disease which in the hot summer of America is nearly as fatal and terrible as the plague. All who could leave the town fled; but many carried the disease with them, and died upon the road. The hotels, shipyards, and stores were closed, bodies rudely nailed up in boards were hurried about the streets, and met with hasty burial outside the city, before vital warmth had fled; the holy ties of natural affection were disregarded, and the dying were left alone to meet the King of Terrors, none remaining to close their eyes; the ominous clang of the death-bell was heard both night and day, and a dense brown fog was supposed to brood over the city, which for five weeks was the abode of the dying and the dead.

A temporary regard for religion was produced among the inhabitants of St. John by the visit of the pestilence; it was scarcely possible for the most sceptical not to recognise the overruling providence of God: and I have seldom seen more external respect for the Sabbath and the ordinances of religion than in this city.

The preponderance of the rougher sex was very strongly marked at Waverley House. Fifty gentlemen sat down to dinner, and only three ladies, inclusive of the landlady. Fifty-three cups of tea graced the table, which was likewise ornamented with six boiled legs of mutton, numerous dishes of splendid potatoes, and corn-cobs, squash, and pumpkin-pie, in true colonial abundance.