an hour before noon
America had also received the taint ; and , were it yellow fever or plague , the epidemic was gifted with a virulence before unfelt . The devastation was not confined to the towns , but spread throughout the country ; the hunter died in the woods , the peasant in the corn-fields , and the fisher on his native waters . A strange story was brought to us from the East , to which little credit would have been given , had not the fact been attested by a multitude of witnesses , in various parts of the world . On the twenty-first of June , it was said that an hour before noon , a black sun arose : an orb , the size of that luminary , but dark , defined , whose beams were shadows , ascended from the west ; in about an hour it had reached the meridian , and eclipsed the bright parent of day . Night fell upon every country , night , sudden , rayless , entire . The stars came out , shedding their ineffectual glimmerings on the light-widowed earth . But soon the dim orb passed from over the sun , and lingered down the eastern heaven .