Holwell was an unselfish man, a man of the most generous
impulses; he lived and died famous for these fine and rare qualities; yet
when he found out what was happening to that unwatched sleeve, he took
the precaution to suck that one dry first. The miseries of the Black
Hole were able to change even a nature like his. But that young
gentleman was one of the twenty-three survivors, and he said it was the
stolen perspiration that saved his life. From the middle of Mr.
Holwell's narrative I will make a brief excerpt:
"Then a general prayer to Heaven, to hasten the approach of the
flames to the right and left of us, and put a period to our misery.
But these failing, they whose strength and spirits were quite
exhausted laid themselves down and expired quietly upon their
fellows: others who had yet some strength and vigor left made a last
effort at the windows, and several succeeded by leaping and
scrambling over the backs and heads of those in the first rank, and
got hold of the bars, from which there was no removing them. Many
to the right and left sunk with the violent pressure, and were soon
suffocated; for now a steam arose from the living and the dead,
which affected us in all its circumstances as if we were forcibly
held with our heads over a bowl full of strong volatile spirit of
hartshorn, until suffocated; nor could the effluvia of the one be
distinguished from the other, and frequently, when I was forced by
the load upon my head and shoulders to hold my face down, I was
obliged, near as I was to the window, instantly to raise it again to
avoid suffocation.
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