Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1853-03-10
A Village ovsrrhslmsd.

NtnaEe Overwhelmed,
A traveller i, Switzerland, writing to the Phil
adelpEhia Evening Bulletin, gives the following
thrilling account of the destruction of the vii
lage of Goldau
Many feet under the rough rocks on which the
actual church of Goldau stands, is a buried viii
lage, which if it were rather less crushed and
ground to pieces, some 1900 years hence, might
be as curious a mine for eager New Zealanders, as
Pompeii is for now. 1t is the old village of
the same name which in 1906 was overwhelmed
by mountain fall Much more terrible the cat
astrophe must have been, than any shower of slow
ashes. Though, if one were to choose his death
between the two, he would prefer humiliation by
lying boulder to slow sulphurous sutiocation
in his back cellar. The mountain that did this
mischief was staid, grave, Pile, two miles away
and was so little dlstrusted that it was covered
like the rest of the hills around, with chaets and
pastures, chewing cows and whistling peasants
Any geoogist would have hesitated to live upon
1T, however, for though the whole long slope from
Goldau to the distant summit was of firm rock,
covered by rich soil deep underneath this
a treacherous stratum of clay. Yielding to the
temptation of the autumn rains, this mountain
took drop too much. 1t lost its gravity stag
gered, fell The clay became slush, and down
the creased ways the whole vast mass slid upon
the valley. Any one who has seen large vessel
launched can conceive, perhaps what impetus a
mass of rock, of the weight of millions of loaded
ships, would get n sliding distance oftwo miles
down down a slope 5000 feet high. But it Is al
most impossible to conceive of the desolation
scattered before it. The wholt broad valley, for
a distance of four or five miles, and breadth of
two or three, was filled with CHASTITY rubbish. The
sky was utterly blackened by cloud of flying
stones and dust. High up the oppcsi' side of the
valley, where, if nature had issued ticke,s
spectator would have taken his place without
hesitation to witness the conyulsion, voleys of
immense rocks were hurled like grape shot, carry
ing all before them. The church bell of Goldau
was found knocked a mile and one village chapel
was swept half a league from its found ton. OF
those who were Immediately exposed, only three
escaped. One child and a servant were dug out
the day after, and perhaps more vivid idea of
the calamity may be got from the story of the
servant, Francisco, than from any vague coneep-
ton.
1t was about time of September afternoon.
She was sitting in a back room, amusing the
child, when she heard some one shout, Run for
your life" She snatched up the child, jumped
toward the door, but before she reached 1t, the
house was struck and sent spinning down the
valley. She instantly lost the child and was
thrown from the floor against the ceiling, against
the sides, every way: the furniture, and shortly
the broken boards of the floor joining in this
strange dance, beams cracking and splintering
with terrific noise, and the house gradually falling
to pieces. Presently it stopped. Awaking from
her giddy, dizzy delrium, she discovered that she
was alive and brushing away the blood which fill
ed her eyes, she found her5elf almost sutacated,
in the dark, her body half crushed, az immove
ably ianmed between beams and broken stones
her feet uppermost. Shortly after she was amazed
to hear the child near her, crying. She spoke to
her. The child said she was against some stones,
and couldn't move, but she saw the daylight and
some bushes, and She wanted to know VIII the
matter was, and when people were going to take
her out. Francisco shocked, and told her
with equal simplicity, that it was the day of
judgment That there were no people left hat
presently she would find herself in bright light
and that yvoud he heaven and she nuSn't he
frightened, but must pray. So they prayed till
the child got tired and cried for her supper.
About this time Francisco heard village clock
which disproved her theory, and comtorted her
She soothed the childs cries, which finally ceased
entirely, and she thought her dead. All night the
poor passed in this cruel posture, and it is
curious that her suffering not so much from
bruises or loss of bloud. as from the exceeding
GOODNESS of her feet AT last by prodigious effort,
she partially extricated her legs, and so waited
death With the new day, dim light reached
her, and the child awoke, and again moaned-
These means the father heard for it happened
that he was near, digging the boaies of his wife
and smaller child out of the ground, where they
had been found. The child, when released, said
she had been talking with Francisco, and by
great deal of labor, she was rescued and saved
The child's thigh broken and the servant
was for long time blind, and what quite
cusable was always subject afterwards, to con-
yulsions of terror.
The other child saved was an infant, found ly-
ing on its straw mattress upon stream of mud,
with no vestige of the house in which it had been
left -Four hundred and fifty men, women, and
children were buried alive in the mass, and more
than 5000 -bufGlIfgs disappeared. Nature has
drawn partial screen Of moss and grass and
bushes over the chaos of the valley, and man has
built road over it, and church and a tavern on
the site of the principal village destroyed but the
mountain side is bare and scathed, and the terri
BILE ruin will be forever evident.