enlarge the city, which lies hemmed in between the Rhone and the
Saone. When the works were nearly completed, an old boatman warned
Edgeworth 'that a tremendous flood might be expected in ten days
from the mountains of Savoy. I represented this to the company, and
proposed to employ more men, and to engage, by increased wages,
those who were already at work, to continue every day till it was
dark, but I could not persuade them to a sudden increase of their
expenditure. . . . At five or six o'clock one morning, I was
awakened by a prodigious noise on the ramparts under my windows. I
sprang out of bed, and saw numbers of people rushing towards the
Rhone. I foreboded the disaster! dressed myself, and hastened to the
river. . . When I reached the Rhone, I beheld a tremendous sight!
All the work of several weeks, carried on daily by nearly a hundred
men, had been swept away. Piles, timber, barrows, tools, and large
parts of expensive machinery were all carried down the torrent, and
thrown in broken pieces upon the banks. The principal part of the
machinery had been erected upon an island opposite the rampart; here
there still remained some valuable timber and engines, which might,
probably, be saved by immediate exertion. The old boatman, whom I
have mentioned before, was at the water-side; I asked him to row me
over to the island, that I might give orders how to preserve what
remained belonging to the company. My old friend, the boatman,
represented to me, with great kindness, the imminent danger to which
I should expose myself. "Sir," he added, "the best swimmer in Lyons,
unless he were one of the Rhone-men, could not save himself if the
boat overset, and you cannot swim at all."

'"Very true," I replied, "but the boat will not overset; and both my
duty and my honour require that I should run every hazard for those
who have put so much trust in me." My old boatman took me over