Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1899-11-18

1t will be remembered that a short
time ago an account of the floods and
land slides in India was given ia this
paper and also the death of the chill
dren of Mr.. and Mrs. D. Fl. Lee. Be-
low is letter written by Mr.. Benja-
min Aitkin, of Calcutta, which gives
a graphic account of the disaster:
An appalling catastrophe has taken
place at Darjeeling, the great hill san
itarium of Bengal. This place is sit
uated at an elevation of seven thous-
and feet above sea level, on the south
ern slopes of the Himalaya mountains
and twenty two hours journey by
rail due north of Calcutta. 1t con-
tains large population of natives,
living in huts and bazaars, and more
than hundred residences of Euro
peans, both on the lower levels and on
the steep hillsides. There are also
several first-class schools for European
children who are sent there to be kept
out of the trying climate of Calcutta
and the plains Of Bengal.
On Sunday evening, September "a
a cyclone accompanied with torrents
HJ4 II III QIh UlC SUdUIOU, DIS gOW uS
like Darjeeling are called in India.
1t continued all night and nearly
twenty inches of rain fell. Before
midnight houses had begun to collapse
in all directions and the water, soak
ing into the soil, sent vast avalanches
of rocks and earth mixed with shrubs
and trees rolling down the hillsides
with roar which alarmed all the in
habitants.
The Arcadia Girls High School
stands on ridge in one of the most
popular parts of Darjeeling and has
fifty boarders, besides many day
scholars. The lady principal is Miss
@. Josephine Stahl an American horn
in Indianola, Iowa. She was stu
dent OF Simpson College, Iowa, and of
the Northwestern University, Evans
ton, Ill. She was sent to India in
1892 by the Northwestern Branch of
the Womans Foreign Missionary So
ciety and was principal of the Cal
cutta Girls High School in 1696-99.
She took charge of the school at Oar
feeling in the spring of the present
year.
About half past ten o'clock when
the pupils and teachers were in bed
part of the building fell in and Miss
Stahl made the girls get up and dress
and took them, with the teachers,
through the rain and darkness to a
house called Ida Villa higher up the
ridge. Before long Arcadia was swept
and bank of mud covered the site.
The girls were accommodated in the
main hall of Ida Villa and most of
them lay down on the floor to sleep.
But in little more than an hour after
ward great mass of the hill above
came down and covered the house,
knocking down one wall but leaving
the roof and the other walls as they
were. The inmates were thus shut
in and drenched with mud but not
crushed. By desperate efforts a num-
Der of the girls were pushed or drag
ged through the ruin out into the del
uge, but the danger of a second ava
lanche which would have blotted out
the school increased every moment.
Very great difficulty was experienced
in keeping the terrified girls in Or
der. There was in the school staying
as visitor the wife Of the Rev. Frank
W. Warne, pastor of the American
Methodist Episcopal Church in Cal
cutta. This lady with her daughter
who is one of the senior girls in the
schools and two of the teachers,
scrambled through window and got
on the road above and walked three
quarters of a mile through the tempest
to the Union Church Manse in search
of assistance. Two gentlemen i'm
medately set out to get help among
the neighbors. In very short time
six or seven gentlemen were at work
on the ruin and forty-flve girls were
got out alive and nearly all uninjur-
ed. But two sisters aged nine and
three, third girl and little boy
were taken out dead. The parents of
these children are well known in Cal
.cutta and much sympathy is felt with
them in their bereavement. The boy
was son Of the Rev. Herbert Ander-
son secretary of the English Baptist
Missionary Society-Carey's Society.
The rescuing was a work of danger
as we'll as of indescribable labor. The
correspondent of one of the Calcutta