Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1871-11-17

same State, of date Oc. .ober 28th, gives
further details of the fata! character of the
recent forest fires in that State, whereby
hundreds of lives were lost. TIE majorlty
of the sufferers by this disaster were b.
hemiaus, Norwegians and Belgians
RosIFRE IN FLAMES.
BRUSSELS, WIS, October 27.-I have
told you Of part Of tie drama enacted at
Peshtigo a4d along the western shore
Bat when the fire fel! upon the unhappy
people of Ro-i, r., who h ii long been in
bed, reckless Of the lnrkipg fires which,
outlined by tee inky night, filled the air
with lUti1 threatening, wholesale death
supplemented the work of destruction.
Covering fertile track of clearing, the
settlement ged atragglingly over mile
or more of cleared and wooded country.
The first struck were Bohemians, and they
are a self-possessed, placid people, not
easily dismayed. The suffCcatiDg breath
of the tornado warned them, at last, that
the struggle was now an extreme one, with
life, instead of property, as the stake. The
women were rapidly hurried into wells and
cellars, and wet blankets thrown over those
who had to seek shelter in the clearing.
At first the roaring blaze, thuudering like
imm measurable cataracts among the tree
tops, and only now and then swoopipg
down, admitted of something like defence,
but in moment great glare overepread
the clearings, Liding everything ftom the
i'm prisOned Wretches.
RAIN OF FIRE.
Presently hail of fire, mingled with
electrical currents fell among the suffer
ers, and the ground in an instant was lit
tered with dead. The rain, for it was lit
eral rain, poured down an incessant stream
of hot. scorching flame and embers that
cut like burning sand, and human life
witht red like snow before the terrific flood.
There was no darkness now those who
had eyes to see could penetrate the fervid
air only q step at time. with face and
neck emothered in wetted blankets. In
this way few cool heads really did es-
cape; others made for the woods. others
for the wells, and between these divergent
places CT refuge many-to their own mex
presGible amaz 4ment-were saved. There
were those who, kneeling devoutly, met
death with superstitious fortitude. There
were others, in whose dead hands the ig
noble savings of EAST parsimony fingered.
Women, conscious of the terrible danger,
actually took time to snatch gew-gaws,
which were afterward found in their pock
cts. The dead fell in groups; the wounded
painfully crawling on hands and knees,
with faces pressed into the ground, cem
upon their Cead neighbors, and with
| roasting flesh and naked bodies finally
dragged their forms into the unutterable
relief of temporary and timely oblivion.
TUE DEAD AND HOW THEY LOCKED
When the dull light of morning me,
| forty-four bO lies lay withered and breath
| less among their ruined homes. The
marks of the fire varied singularly. In
! some cases the victims were found with
patches Of flesh stripped off to the bone;i ;in
others on unearthly pallor had followed
the fiery breath, as though the blood had
dried up in the fierce heat end the cutcle
bleached to leper-like transparent parch
ment. In other faces, the g'aring eyes
and infamed cheeks seemed to have re-
flected the coloring of the tempest Some
of the corpses were headlesS the light
hair, catching the swaJlng currents would
burn to the scalp, and never stop TIL the
neck was eaten away. Some lay VI the
limbs eaten to the untouched bodies,
hideous trunks, naked and ecorched be-
yond recognition. O!hers lay unsecured.
smiling, with gentle eyes upturned to the
lowering heavens, while others again, with
dreadIully burned arms aid legs, thrust
their parched mouths deep into the sand,
and smothered in the raging sea of fire.
Most Of the dead as far up as Brus sells
we're grown people. generally men. Some
women and children were also recogniz d,
but there are probably one hundred that
never can be accounted for. The good
priest w8s spared to his afflicted people,
and on the morning when every house in
the settlement lay in ashes. he came to
minister to the living and prepare the dead
for Christian sepulture.
SYMPATHY AND sUCCoR.
Continually immersed in their own pu1-
suits, and morbibly clannish. these Bohe-
mians. Norwegians and Belgians know lit
tie OF the language of the land; and when
they gathered tearlessly about their ruined
homes, they had no idea of how they were
to sill continue the struggle for life. That
dead stretched among the ashes OF the
: remnant of thoir hamlet, they hovered
about tie disastrous place. The calamity
had been SO widespread that neighbhors
had no time for the idle show of grief; bul
80 -s..r