The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1877-03-14

psickly branches Of the Madar trees in reality
these prcks and thorns held them tight. as if
with natural grappiing-hooks, and prevented
them from being swept away. The mode Of
habitation is in this wise: each hamlet consists
Of four or six houses Ito each house family
these are built (thatch and mattiEg) on a slight
ly raised platform, composed Of earth thrown up
from the surrounding ditch they are surrounded
by wall Of trees, high aud dense. 1t was this
formation. unvarying in kind, though varying in
degree, that prevented the loss Of life from being
universal. Indeed. the trees, in their long
stretching arms, held up the poor drowning
souls. In those hamlets where trees grew thick
IL many lives were saved 10 those hameis
where there happened to be gaps or breaks in
the environment of trees most of the Inhabitants
were carried of. The bodies OF the lost we're
carried to considerable distances, where they
could not be identified. Most homesteads have
dead strangers lying about, washed in from dis
tant villages. The corpses began TO purify be-
fore the water cleared off the grounds, so they
are LETT unburied in numbers all over the coun-
try Tin Mahomedan population there Is no
crematiou). They are indeed masses of corrup-
ticn which no one can bear to approach, and
they present a sickening spectacle. Mixed with
human bodies are the bodies OF cattle, all heaped
up together. The smell in many places was dis
tressing to US us we walked through the fields
from village 10 village. Weather-tossed seamen
in the Bay OF Bengal saw many corpses hoated
out from land with the waves Corpses from the
Sundeep Islands were flung on 10 the seashore
a; Chittagong; aud LIVING persons were swept
thither across an arm OF the sea- clingng TO the
roofs or beams OF their own houses, Us il upon
RATS. The force of the inundation appears to
have lasted in most places from about midnight
| TO two a. m., that is, for two hours; by day
break there was much subsistence OF food, aud
| By nooa next day the survivors had come down
| from the trees and regained terra hrma. But
| they must have been foodless and shelterless for
the rest Of that day, and all the next day. Alter
that. however, they began to reassembe, not,
indeed, ut the rains of their homesteads, which
had been carried away entirely, but at the sites
and fountains. They took out their stores OF
grain buried in pits; dried those which were vet
/ 1.-THE sun having come out in the cleared skyl
and cooked such as were unchanged. AT every
homestead which | visited found the people
engaged in drying their grain. They also made
frameworks with broken branches. over which
they threw sheets aud cloths such as they had
I about them at the moment, and so made little
| tent-ke habitations. Plantain trees abounded,
but the fruit was mostly destroyed. The cocoa
nuts, however, very frequently stood through the
storm, and must have afforded some sustenanee.
There must have been much trouble about fresh
water at first. But either the drinking tanks
speedily recovered from the brackishness left by
the salt wave, or else the storm. wave must have
mainly consisted OF fresh water, for the drinking
tanks we're not brackish when We tasted them a
few days afterwards. 1t was a great relief 20
find that such was the case. Some tanks and
some swamps are full OF human corpses and dead
cattle and all manner of felld matters. aud can
not be approached; the streamets which carry
off the accumulated water were flowing black
and thick with putrid substances.