Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-07-07

tTANVFDNIu

Awfni ttIosd in AustruIia-who Districts
Dsvsstatsd-Terrible I,ess OF Life and
Property. y kA . ~
The New York Tribune publishes private
letter from 1llawarra District, New South
Wales, dated March 3lst, 1860, in which the
following account of terrible food which
recently occurred in that vicinity is given:
We have recently had tropical torrents Of
rain, that were fearful. But In February, the
aood-gates of Heaven seemed to be open, and
all the fountain-heads Of the rivers to have
burst their bonds 10 overflow us. These dis
tricts have been devastated by one of the
most fearful floods ever known in Australia
Life and property have been sacrificed to an
extent truly appalling, The damage done
can not be estimated. Whole families, with
every living thingon their homesteads, crops
aud all, were swept into the seaOfthe resistless
food, and no one left to tell what they he We
lost.
AT Bells Creek Diggings the claims have
all been filed. The poor miners were
whirled away clear over q fall of thousand
feet deep, at the bottom Of which the remains
Of many were found. No one at the diggings
escaped to tell how suddenly the waters came
down upon them. or of the gold that was
lost. One little girl was found alive in the
region of Bells Creek, who had lost her
father, mother, five brothers and sisters, and
home. All that she possessed and loved in
the world were swept away. In one night
this poor unfortunate was dashed down to
poverty and orphanage. The face of the
country is 80 changed, that she can not point
out the place where their house stood.
Near the source Of the Shoal Haven River,
at one point, the water was seen TO come
rushing down upon the plains, like a vast
nVrannid IN
hundred feet. The upland flats were like
great lakes. On and on swept the avalanche
Of waters in its desolating path. An inn
mense belt of richly cultivated lands smiling
with plenty, has been left like ruined des-
ert, filled or covered with sand and rocks.
Houses, gardens, crops, cattle, horses, fences,
trees, soil, men, women, and children, were
swept over precipices, down through valleys,
and ON into the surging sea, and thrown
back upon the coast in indescribable con-
fusion. For many miles the shore was COW
cred with the awful wreck. Boats were
rowed and steamed over where town had
stood, in endeavoring to save some of the
drowning people, who had gone up to the
tops of the highest buildings. In this way
some were rescued just before their houses
were swept away. Some of these boats now
stand high and dry in the midst of where the
town once stood. The Shoal Haven River
oSu hoo DVVh hilCu lub WdJtTS nave
found another channel. ....
An island at the mouth of the Shoal Haven
was inhabited by about ninety families,
probably nearly four hundred persons. The
people, seeing the waters rising up suddenly
all around them, fed to the highest hills
Soon all they had was gone, and the waters
kept creeping up after them. The people
we're wonderfully preserved A vessel al
sea saw them, and sailed to their relief
They were saved just before the island was
submerged. ''' .'
A great many individual cases of thrilling
interest are related. Many poor mother
sacrificed her life in wild efforts to save her
poor children. One young man, in his ef-
forts to save his mother, swan with her
through the flood, and carried her across an
1verflowed field. He struggled hard to reach
place of safety; he succeeded, and laid his
treasure-his feeble mother-down, but only
10 see her die. Teu minutes after he had
Drought her to safe place she closed her
eyes in death. A baystack floated down in
sight, with men hanging to it. They were,
indeed, drowning men catching at straws.
Huge trees, with drowning families hanging
10 the branches, swept on before u.s. Il
would fill q volume to record the details OF
jufering which have desolated this wrecked
district. The destruction has been most
complete.