No. 50.
Mr. Goodloe
to Mr. Evarts.
Brussels, August 4, 1879. (Received August 18.)
Sir: Up to a week ago it seemed as if this entire country would become a vast lake. So incessant and heavy have been the rainfalls that [Page 67] the local journals declare the inundation to be greater than that of 1850, which I judge from the comparison must have been up to that time unprecedentedly disastrous. Even a few cellars in the lower part of this city have been filled with water, but out of the city, up and down the Senne, the fields and meadows have been deluged and great damage already done to the crops. Along the valley from Charleroi, from Forest to Ruysbroeck, all the lands were submerged, presenting the appearance of an immense lake with agricultural products floating on the surface, and fruit trees uprooted and destroyed. In not a few instances farmers have been compelled to abandon their homes; the gas works of Forest have been flooded and many manufactories have stopped work.
Having occasion to go to Mons, I observed myself the fearful ravages of the water. At points on the prairie land, as far as the eye could reach on either side of the train, was an almost unbroken expanse of water. The tops of grain only could be seen, hay-cocks were more than half submerged, and the water was on the first floor of many peasants’ houses. The floods had reached the water-works, and, deranging the machinery—the citizens of Mons were like men shipwrecked—water everywhere and none to drink. Cattle stood breast-high in water; hay, when it could be reached, was dragged to higher points and thrown across clothes-lines to drip and dry. The waters gathered so rapidly in many places that no preventive measures could be employed, and the floating crops dammed the natural outlets of the water, forcing it back to spread additional desolation. At Liege the waters rose so high as to justly alarm the people, and at Jemappes, St. Ghislain, Boussu, Namur, Huy, and Maestricht the destruction is said to have been fearful.
The weather changed a week ago, and since then, instead of pouring rains, there have been sunshine and warmth. Indeed, so marked has been the change for the better, that any estimate of the exact loss of agricultural products would at best be only conjectural, though in general terms it would be safe to say the injury has been very great.
Farmers are proverbially such grumblers that 50 per cent, as a rule may be added in their estimates, but it did look a week ago as if everything was hopelessly destroyed.
These rains have been pronounced “unprecedented,” and in order to enable you to have a perfect understanding of what that word signifies in a Belgian sense, I will give you the particulars of the extraordinary weather of Belgium during the year 1878, as taken from the “Annuaire de l’Observatoire” of Brussels, viz, 206 rainy days, 17 days hail, 19 snow, 17 severe frost, 24 thunder storms, 47 foggy weather, 33 very cloudy weather, and finishing with 2 days only of clear sky.
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I have, &c.,