The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-08-21

I iNcl anu bdD6iCd INC SCI DtnlS IIOm
! the caves. The cloisters are so shat
tered that people are prohibited from
| entering them One of these death
/ dealing bars fell into the narrow street
almost at the door Of our chapel.
The one of the two great anchors of
the ship that was not in the water at
/ the time was torn from its fastenings
and describing an arc in the air, flew
over the cathedral and several blocks
OF the houses, and graZed the project
ing balcony of a four story house as it
/ fell and buried itself in the center of a
/ narrow sidewalk of the most frequent
I lng-stone in two, and burying It's
! fiukes two feet deep in the soil be-
/ meath, doing no other damage and hit
; ting no one.
! The effects of the disaster on the in
/ habitants were appalling. The sud
/ denness and the fearfulness, and the
extent of the catastrophe shattered
I the nerves of the strongest, and broke
! the courage of many OF the stoutest
hearts. a panic set in and thousands
fed the city, while the flames were
devouring the splendid houses of the
new streets of MendeZ NuneZ and
Calderon. Who could tell at what
moment from the midst of those
houses another volcano might burst
forth? And, indeed, for several hours
it seemed inevitable that the fire
would spread to the cathedral street,
on the heights, and from there to the
rest of the city. At different times
during that terrible night the cathe-
dral and our house, and the interven-
ing houses were enveloped in the
sparks and flames from the houses
burning at the foot of the hill, and if
any wind had then been blowing, as
is so frequently the case in that bay,
the city must have gone, AS it was,
all night long the pastor and the
teacher, helped by members of the
congregation, were moving the chapel
furniture and their personal effects to
a remOter house for greater safety.
Persons were made deaf by the con-
cussion of the air; others were well
nigh if not entirely craZed, and thou |
sands were so shaken and unnerved
that every sound of shutting door or
window, every cry or call in the street |
by day or by night, frightened them |
almost beyond control, from fear that |
it might be another explosion.
/ reached Santander the day that it |
was discovered that, of the thousand |
and six hundred boxes of dynamite |
that were in the ship, six hundred were |
still In the wreck intact! a frenzy |
seized the people on hearing of this, |
and thousands whe had not fled be |
fore now broke for the country in |
widest haste. When i entered the |
city its streets were deserted, the
stores were closed in large part, and it |
seemed like city of the dead. By |
the time left, the last of the six hun !
dred boxes of dynamite had been re-
moved from the wreck and had been
thrown into the deep sea, and the |
craZed citiZons were slowly returning |
to town.
Now, how can it be explained that |
the captain of the Inflated ship, and |
the owner, the Marques de Casa POM
DO, and others, knowing that there /
were in the hold of their ship, duly |
and lawfully received at Bilbao for the
ports of Almeria, Car
tagena and Alicante, some 10000 box
es of dynamite, besides the twenty
two boxes for Santander, dared to stay
on board or near the ship? The an
swer is: they fully believed that
though the ship should burn to ashes,
the dynamite on board would not eX-
plode! 1t is remembered that this
captain was once in command, as first |
or second officer, of another ship that
years ago was destroyed by fire, while
a quantity of dynamite that was on
board did not explode, though the
wooden boxes t. at held it were con-
Why did the captain assure
the captain of the mail steamship
NIL, who generously |
came TO help with his tug and |
crew, that there were no more
aboard? The explanation
must be that he knew, and that the
Marques de Casa Pombo knew, that if
he should confess that there was dyna-
mite still on board, the ship would be
deserted by all who were |
helping to eXtinguish the flames and
to save the freight, and as he thought
he dynamite would not explode he
excused himself for the
alsehood.
1t is, indeed, not thought that the
dynamite exploded from the direct |
Iction of the fire, but from the shock
If the bursting boiler. And yet we
must ask, how is it to be explained
hat this shock, added to by the shock
f the exploding of the thousand
oXes of dynamite, was not enough to ,
make explode the remaining six hun
red boxes?
1t is plain that there are still mys-
cries in the action of this terrific ex-
losive. Let it be hoped that in the
diving of these it may not be neces- !
airy to wreck another city and to sac
ifice a thousand human victims.
WIN. II. GULICK.
st. Sebastian, Spain, Nov, 1898.
|