On Thursday the dread conflagration,
after raging for five consecutive days and nights, was at length
conquered.
On Friday morning the sun rose like a ball of crimson fire above
a scene of blackness, ruin, and desolation. Whole streets were
levelled to the ground, piles of charred stones marked where
stately churches had stood, smoke rose in clouds from smouldering
embers. With sorrowful hearts many citizens traversed the scene
of desolation that day; amongst others Pepys and Evelyn. The
latter recounts that "the ground and air, smoke and fiery vapour,
continu'd so intense, that my haire was almost sing'd, and my
feete unsuffurably surbated. The people who now walk'd about ye
ruines appear'd like men in some dismal desert, or rather in some
greate citty laid waste by a cruel enemy; to which was added that
stench that came from some poore creatures' bodies, beds, and
other combustible goods."
It would have been impossible to trace the original course of the
streets, but that some gable, pinnacle, or portion of walls, of
churches, halls, or mansions, indicated where they had stood.
The narrower thoroughfares were completely blocked by rubbish;
massive iron chains, then used to prevent traffic at night in the
streets, were melted, as were likewise iron gates of prisons, and
the hinges of strong doors. Goods stored away in cellars and
subterranean passages of warehouses yet smouldered, emitting foul
odours; wells were completely choked, fountains were dried at
their sources.
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