Towards the end of the year 1570, still another and a terrible misfortune descended upon the Netherlands.  It was now the hand of God which smote the unhappy country, already so tortured by the cruelty of war.  An inundation, more tremendous than any which had yet been recorded in those annals so prolific in such catastrophes, now swept the whole coast from Flanders to Friesland.  Not the memorable deluge of the thirteenth century, out of which the Zuyder Zee was born; not that in which the waters of the Dollart had closed for ever over the villages and churches of Groningen; not one of those perpetually recurring floods by which the inhabitants of the Netherlands, year after year, were recalled to an anxious remembrance of the watery chaos out of which their fatherland had been created, and into which it was in daily danger of resolving itself again, had excited so much terror and caused so much destruction.  A continued and violent gale from the north-west had long been sweeping the Atlantic waters into the North Sea, and had now piled them upon the fragile coasts of the provinces.  The dykes, tasked beyond their strength, burst in every direction.  The cities of Flanders, to a considerable distance inland, were suddenly invaded by the waters of the ocean.  The whole narrow peninsula of North Holland was in imminent danger of being swept away for ever.  Between Amsterdam and Meyden, the great Diemer dyke was broken through in twelve places.  The Hand-bos, a bulwark formed of oaken piles, fastened with metal clamps, moored with iron anchors, and secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread.  The “Sleeper,” a dyke thus called, because it was usually left in repose by the elements, except in great emergencies, alone held firm, and prevented the consummation of the catastrophe.  Still the ocean poured in upon the land with terrible fury.  Dort, Rotterdam, and many other cities were, for a time, almost submerged.  Along the coast, fishing vessels, and even ships of larger size, were floated up into the country, where they entangled themselves in groves and orchards, or beat to pieces the roofs and walls of houses.  The destruction of life and of property was enormous throughout the maritime provinces, but in Friesland the desolation was complete.  There nearly all the dykes and sluices were dashed to fragments; the country, far and-wide, converted into an angry sea.  The steeples and towers of inland cities became islands of the ocean.  Thousands of human beings were swept out of existence in a few hours.  Whole districts of territory, with all their villages, farms, and churches, were rent from their places, borne along by the force of the waves, sometimes to be lodged in another part of the country, sometimes to be entirely engulfed.  Multitudes of men, women, children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were struggling in the waves in every direction.  Every boat, and every article which could serve as a boat, were eagerly seized upon.  Every house