The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-22
THE STORY OF LASTISLAND.
A Lovely Southern Resort Destroyed
By a Tidal Wave.

Hundreds of Lives Were Lost-The
Summer Home of Many Prominent
Families Swept Out of Existence.
Strange Atmospheric Conditions
Preceding the Storm-Death Stopped
the Dance.
From the New Cork Times.
Bay st. Louis, La, Oct. 14.-The terri
bic cyclone of Oct. l, which destroyed so
many lives, wildly recalls an incident
that will ever live in the memory of the
Gulf State residents, the destruction of
Last Island, off the Louisiana coast, by
cyclone and tidal wave, Sept. u, 1856.
Last Island was a long, low streak Of
green, bounded around the edge with
line of dazzlingly white sand. Seen in
those days from the Louisiana mainland
fifteen miles away, the lower end of the
parish of Lafourche-it seemed but a
slender bit of green floating upon the
bosom of the summer sea.
As one drew nearer, the land displayed
its charm. Propinquity brought out as
in delicate photograph all its lines of
radiant beauty. OF forest, so deep and
dense in the far south, there was none.
grown upon the island, and, in the weird
light of the semi-tropic moon, covered
from crown to lowest bough with the
long gray moss of the latitude, they
seemed like great giants wrapped in
funereal robes, waving their arms aloftas
they fled from a coming Dies Ir8.
The island, though one long sand spit,
(only few feet above the highest of tide
level of the sea-, was very Eden of flow
ers The falling leaves Of the Ive-oaks
for centuries had created in their decay
bed of rich alluvium, which artificial
means had greatly increased. The ever
warm air from the further south seas had
given to the shrub growth an extraordi-
nary richness of verdure. The orange
and lemon trees, the olive, the oleander,
which in Louisiana is a tree thirty feet
high; all of the tribe of japonicas, that
scented summer flower the jasmine, yell
low and cape, and hundreds of others I'M
known to the north, made the island
coruscent with brilliant-colored blooms
1t seemed that all that was rich and lovely
and beautiful in tue vegetation of the
semi-tropics here found its most congenial
home.
In the evening, when the sun went
down and the warm south wind blew in
from the sea, the air would be heavy
with sweet unfamiliar flower odors. One
would be enveloped in the fragrance of
the cape jasmine and surrounded in a
very caress of perfume direct from the
heart OF the great white Persian jasmine
All, the dreamy happy life of that won
derful isle. 1t was a watering place,
with the most splendid surf-bathing on
the side next to the open sea that ever
was. But it had none of the garishness
of the seacoast places of later days. 1t
could never have been like Long Branch
or Cape May. To gamblers and the danes
of the half-world, Last Island was as diff
ticult as Paradise. 1t was as impossible
to pass the argus eyes of the dozen who
watched the gangEvay of the boat, as the
passengers came on board for the en-
Chanted isle, as for Adam to have re
turned to Eden when it was guarded by
the angel with the flaming sword.
The men who gathered there were not
strangers to each other, for in Louisiana
then everybody who was any body knew of
his social equal, if ne was not a personal
acquaintance, no matter In what region
he lived. So here was spot, not very
much known to the outer world, where
could gather, when summer days became
long and the dOg-star ragged, the great
cOtton-planting magnates of Louisiana,
Mississippi Arkansas and Alabama, or
the rich, courtly creole sugar growers
from the Bayou Lafourche country or the
Cote dor, on the Mississippi river, and
their congeners, the American sugar
growers from the Felicianas and wealthy,
aristocratic Rapides.
Once year the cream of the country
side gentry from the states named, with a
sprinkling of wealthy city men''-lner-
chants and factors from New Orleans,
few bankers, popular clergymen from rich
citv parishes-who enjoyed good living and
believed st. Paul was right when he eX-
horted Timothy to take a little wine for
his stOmachs sake. All these people
with their wives and daughters would
congregate at Last Islaud and eat of the
divinest combinations of the French
cuisine produced by cordons bleu, drink,
sparingly generally, of the good red wines
of France, for your old-time planter, es-
pecially if he was of creole blood, never
abused Gods good things'-take daily
plunges into the warm surf, and thus
decOrously enjoy a month Of the dolce far
niente.
Never were men more CouPtly. Never
were women more lovelier. 1t was the
very Paradise of gentle, graceful, courte-
GUS attention to beautiful women. Here
Cupid was enshrined, for who could re-
sist the wltchery of the perfumed sum
mer night, of dark-eyed creole women
How often was the sweet old story told
there-that story old, but ever new
WnlCn Adam nrSJ whispered amid the
roses that bloomed supernal in Eden
And sometimes, but not often, the scene
varied. Men were young then, and the
blood of youth ever runs hot.
a quick word on the promenade, a
jealous look, and early next morning on
the sands there might be seen the fash
and CLEAN of the long, slender, triconered
dueIing swords, or pair of dueling pis-
ttols-a part of every gentleman,s personal
belongings in those days-would be taken
IfoIn their mahogany case. A few passes
with the steel, and one of the men would
lie prone, as his blood Redeemed the
sands, run through the body, or the
sharp crack of the deadly dueling pistol,
and pale, white-faced body, forever
still, would be silently carried back to
the hotel. But this was not often. 1t
was the gentle, kindly, harmless, courte-
Gus life of the Master of the Monks of
Ihelma, whose sole injunction was, Fay
qul vouldras."
The season of 1856 at Last Island was
one Of the most charming ever known
since the famous watering place had been
established Never did brave men and
charming women congregate at this de-
Hgnttul rendezvous in greater numbers,
or IN fuller, finer spirit of happiness and
hopeful expectation. The season was at
JUS night For not only was the hotel proper
MED but the dozen or so ofCottages gen
orally known as 1.-THE bachelors quarters
were all occupied by as high-bred, as
gallant, and as gay company of gentle
hag fs.arN l. ell