s of people camped there, crying and
bemoaning their losses; many of them had lost all they possessed in the
world, and had no clothes and sometimes no food.

At last it was seen that the flames must reach St. Paul's Cathedral, and
even those who were most careless held their breath at the thought of
the destruction of so splendid a building. At that time St. Paul's was
being repaired, and the scaffolding round the walls served as fuel for
the flames, which leaped upon it and got such hold of it that the very
stones became red hot. The roof and the tower of the cathedral were a
blaze of fire; soon the lead with which the roof was covered began to
melt, and ran down in golden rain from every gutter into the street
below. You have perhaps seen in fireworks showers of golden rain, but
that was harmless; this was real boiling lead, and if it had struck
anyone would have scorched him up. Streaming as it did from that great
height, it came down with force, and set everything that it fell on in
a blaze. The flames got inside the cathedral, and roared upwards through
the staircases as through so many funnels, and then it was seen that the
fall of the roof was inevitable. It came at last with a tremendous
crash, and showers of sparks shot upwards, lighting up the country for
miles around.

For the whole of the next day the flames continued, and on into the day
after that; and then the wind fell, and the fire burnt with less fury.
By this time, too, people had pulled down houses, and made great gaps
which could not be bridged over by the flames, and so the Great Fire
ceased.

A most curious thing was that the fire had begun in the house of a baker
in Pudding Lane, and the part where it was finally stopped was at Pye
Corner, near Smithfield. It was very odd that both these names should
have had to do with eating. No one knows how it began, but the general
idea is that a servant-girl who was drying some sheets let them fall
into the fire, and then, seeing them flame up, was afraid, and thrust
them into the chimney; so the chimney caught fire, and the house, which
was very dry and built of wood, flamed up, and the fire spread. But
other people say it was done on purpose by a man throwing a light into
the house window.

Close to the spot where it began was put up later a tall monument, a
great column, which is hollow inside, with a staircase to the top, and
anyone may go up by paying threepence; and on the summit there is a
litt