Page 80

any further destruction. There is a great rush
to the railroad depots to get away, but owing
to the earthquake no trains have been able
to be dispatched from the city. Not a single
place of business in the city save a drug store,
which is busy preparing prescriptions for
the wounded, is open.

There are three or four steamers in port
including the buoy tenders, and many of the
inhabitants are provided with berths on these
boats. Fortunately the weather has been
good, and the hardships are not as severe as
they might have been. The situation, however,
is becoming horrible. Cut off from
communication with the rest of the world,
afflicated and haunted with the prospect of
immediate death—that is about the condition
of this community. No trains have departed
or arrived here in 24 hours. It is said that all
the railroads leading into the city are crippled.
The statement is made that all the railroad
tracks are twisted into the shape of
snakes.

Owing to the demoralized condition of
everything here it is impossible to give correct
facts further than this: The number of
casualties has not yet been ascertained—
probably from 30 to 40 killed and over 100 injured.
The loss to property will probably
reach $8,000,000 or $10,000,000. Three-fourths
of the buildings in the city will have to
be rebuilt. There was very little shipping in
port, and none of it was injured. The disturbances
have not at all affected the water
in the harbor, although it is evident that all
the shocks came from a southeasterly direction,
and therefore from the sea. There are
no signs of a tidal wave as yet.

11.50 P. M.—Another shock has just passed
over the city, rather more severe than any
since last night at 9.55, knocking down several
houses.

DETAILED ACCOUNT.

The Disaster as Described for the
Charleston News and Courier.

CHARLESTON, S. C., Sept. 1.—The compositors
of the News and Courier decline to
work tonight, expecting fresh shocks of
earthquake, and the paper cannot, therefore,
issue tomorrow. The following article was
prepared for publication in the News and
Courier, and is telegraphed almost in the
writer's own words:

Necessarily the description that can be
given of the disaster which has befallen our
city consists in the narration of the experiences
and observations of individuals, and
the subject being the same, and the experiences
of all being nearly alike, the story
told by one careful observer may well stand
for a hundred others, with slight variations.
Probably the best idea that can be had of the
character of the disturbance, therefore, may
be obtained from a narration of the events
and scenes of Wednesday night as they were
presented to a single person.

While engaged in his usual duties in the
second-story room of the News and Courier
office at the time of the first shock, the
writer's attention was vaguely attracted by a
sound which seemed to come from the office
below, and which was supposed for a moment
to be caused by the rapid rolling of a heavy
body, as an iron safe or a heavily laden truck,
over the floor. Accompanying the sound
there was a perceptible tremor of the building,
not more marked, however, than would
be caused by the passage of a street car or
dray along the street. For perhaps two or
three seconds the occurrence excited no surprise
or comment. Then by swift degrees—or
perhaps all at once, it is difficult to say
which—the second deepened in volume, the
tremor became more decided, the ear caught
the rattle of window sashes, gas fixtures
and other loose objects. The men in the
office, with perhaps a simultaneous flash
of recollections of the disturbance of the
Friday before, glanced hurriedly at each
other, and sprang to their eet with startled
questions and answers.—"What is that? An
earthquake"—and then all was bewilderment
and confusion. Then the long roll deepened
and spread into an awful roar that seemed to
pervade at once the troubled earth and the
still air above and around. The tremor was
now a rude, rapid quiver, that agitated the
whole lotty, strong-walled building as though
it were being skaken by the hand of an immeasurable
power, with intent to tear its
joints asunder and scatter its stones and
bricks abroad as a tree casts its over-ripened
fruit before the breath of the gale.

There was no intermission in the vibration
of the mighty subterranean engine. From
the first to the last it was a continuous jar,
only adding force at every moment, and as it
approached and reached the climax of its
manifestation, it seemed for a few terrible
seconds that no work of human hands could
possibly survive the shocks. The floors were
heaving under foot, the surrounding walls
and partitions visibly swayed to and fro, the
crash of falling masses of stone and brick and
mortar was heard overhead, and without the
terrible roar filled the ears, and seemed to fill
the mind and heart, dazing perception,
bewildering thought, and for a few panting
braeths, or while you held your breath in
dradful anticipation of immediate and cruel
death, you felt that life was already past, and
waited for the end as the victim with his
head on the block awaits the fall of the
uplifted axe.

It is not given to many men to look in the
face of the destroyer and yet live, but it is
little to say that the group of strong men
who shared the experience above faintly described
will carry with them the recollection
of that supreme moment to their dying day.
None expected to escape. A sudden rush
was simultaneously made to endeavor to
attain the open air and flee to a place of
safety, but before the door was reached all
reeled together to the tottering wall and
stopped, feeling that hope was vain; that it
was only a question of death within the
building or without—to be buried by the sinking
roof or crushed by the toppling walls.

The uproar slowly died away in seeming
distance. The earth was still, and—Oh, the
blessed relief of that stillness! But how rudely
the silence was broken! As we dashed down
the stairway and out into the street, already
on every side arose the shrieks, the cries of
pain and fear, the prayers and wailings of
terrified women and children, commingled
with the hoarse shouts of excited men. Out
in the street the air was filled to the height of
the houses with a whitish cloud of dry,
stifling dust from the lime and mortar and
shattered masonry which, falling upon the
pavement and stone roadway, had been reduced
to powder. Through this cloud, dense
as a fog, the gaslight flickered dimly, shedding
but little light, so that you stumbled at
every step over the piles of brick or became
entangled in the lines of telegraph wires
that depended in every direction from their
broken supports.

On every side were hurrying forms of men
and women, bareheaded, partially dressed,
some almost nude, and many of whom were
crazed with fear or excitement. Here a
woman is supported, half fainting, in the
arms of her husband, who vainly tries to
soothe her while he caries her into the open
space at the street corner, where present
safety seems assured; there a woman lies on
the pavement with upturned face and outstretched
limbs, and the crowd passes her by
for the time, not pausing to see whether she
be alive or dead.

A sudden light flares through a window
overlooking the street. It becomes momentarily
brighter, and the cry of fire resounds
from the multitude. A rush is made
towards the spot. A man is seen doubled up
and helpless against the wall. But at this
moment somewhere out at sea—overhead—
deep in the ground, is heard again the low,
ominous roll, which is already too well
known to be mistaken. It grows louder and
nearer, like the growl of a wild beast, swiftly
approachigg his prey; and all is forgotten
again in the frenzied rush for the open space,