San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-05-18
Seeking Safety Together.

several hundred miles, was the scene OF
a great forest fire. Mighty woods
stretched along tho coast, aud back
from the very edge OF the sea. Lum'
bermen had cut down the best trees
| and used the best parts OF cash tree.
The remaining part was left to dry,
which with the annual increase OF
leaves, moss and cones, made a strata oil
combustibe material. Joaquin Miller
tells, in the Independent, the story OF
the fire: r .,,.- -.,l.... a.,
In the autumn Of 1868, the long
dreaded fire was famed into uncon-
trolable fury by strong wind from the
sea, and this once most magnificent
forest in Ameraca was Sdoomeds A
al did not SEQ this fire; nbut l think,
from what those few survivors who saw
il have told me, it WINS the most fearful
as we'll as the most magnificent sight
that has ever been seen.'1pi '1.', 'al
"A young settler, with his wife and
two children, the youngest an infant OF
only few days old, told, me only q few
weeks after the FIRE his sad experience
in this confagration, and l know Of
nothing more dreadful. si.I So i..m.'
His cabin lay q mile from the sea by
the side of lumber road, and he had a
little garden and some fruit trees
planted about the door yard. 'di
The autumn was late and hot and the
woods hazy and dim, SO that one could
not see far, even down the road toward
the sea. f.,,. q sd fsrw oh .b.tra.
+ Suddenly. one afternoon, he saw a
California lion leap over his garden
fence and creep up the path towards
his door. The man took down his gun.
But the lion had her young whelp
in her mouth and kept creeping closer
to him, looking back over her shoulder
with her eyes large and luminous, yet
with such pleading, human look that
he did not shoot.
Guessing the awful truth, he went
back into the house, took up the baby
and other child, and leaving his wife
asleep, rushed down the road for the
sea-" -'dnifd~} n,g. a.'jrHt f.HI
,.u Before he reached the sea the baby
was dead, and theEother child died soon
after from suffocation.t .ag... @, aayd
His plan of n returning for the poor,
helpless wife, as soon as he had carried
the children ont of danger, of COURSE
now, was an impossible one. ayar
The coast was not SO populous by a
great deal as it had been. Only D few
hundred people now remained, and the
houses in the towns were not half in
habited. ''~ '~. '' .." .' .'
But the only escape for any one was
the sea, and even here the smoke soon
fell so dense that men could hardly see
each others faces, and the childrendied
from suffocation. Is . .- '.' ''
One woman who had got separated
from her husband in trying to reach the
sea, had three children with her, all of
whom died, from one cause and another
during the dark and dreadful days that
followed. .,..,. ,l.a, ...,,gs
She was found wandering up and
down the beach by government ship
which touched here soon after, and
taken to San Francisco, where she died
in an asylum for the insane. l.aI
Perhaps the most remarkable sight
here was thef howl ing mass Of wild
beasts driven down to the.yely narrow
beach by the fames.Ec ~
The young settler spoken of tells me
he was .crowded and pushed about by
bears and other beasts more than once
as he CROPPED along the sand with his
dying children IN his arms. J.
Another man who was fortunate
enough to find boat to escape in, told
me that rats, reptiles, squirrels, rabbits,
deer, elk, and, indeed, all kinds OF
beasts or creatures that inhabit the
Oregon forests, crowded together as if
one family, and did not attempt to harm
each other. +'f" 90 p Ai&
This man, with his friends in the
boat, fearing they would suffocate if
they remained or have their boat
swamped by the millions of creatures
that crowded into the sea, put out to
little group of islands which lay few
miles out from the shore. rns
But even there they found they had
been preceded by bear, elk, deer and
other large guadrupeds. E .. uuJI
He asserted that he sat side by side
with an enormous brown bear that
night, looking back at the fire, which
swept twenty miles up the mountain
from the sea, and up and down the
coast, one solid sheet of flame. ,.a
He says that beasts howled dolefully
for their lost young, and that even the
sea COWS came up out of the sea on the
little islands, and, lifting up their large
eyes toward the burning
forest, joined in the universal wall.