The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-15
STORIES OF SURVIVORS.
TALES OF ST. PIERRE BY THE ROD
DAMS MEN.
All the Terrible Destruction Done I'm
Three SecOnds-The Saving of the

Crippled ship by the Fire-ScOrch-
ed Crew.
From the New York Evening Post.
st. George. Grenada, Windward ISL
ands, May 2O.-This is a morning so
strangely still, and so hazy with
smoke from the prodigious volcanic
tragedies to the northward, that every
mans talk betrays curiosity as to
whether you also, like himself and 9TH
ers, are apprehensive. Unnatural
weather" they say, and glance at the
CLASSY water. and at the idle shipping.
that cannot move for lack of the us
ual trade wind. There is a brooding
fear evident to the newcomer the mo-
ment he steps ashore. There is a feel
time of the cataclysm at Martinique,
bit of this harbor which one crosses
in going to the Botanic Garden boiled
and swirled; ashes from the belching
SoEfriere at ST. Vincent spread over the
town during several days; kilograms
meagerly presenting the destruction
wrought have been posted daily on the
public walls. all bringing the trouble
home to Grenadians. For a week, af-
ter hearing what the rumbling to the
northward signifed, the port was in
solemn awe. Out of twenty one of it's
men who had gone to St. Pierre on the
steamship Roddam, only four survived
what befell. One day telegram said
that the four surviving Grenadians
were being brought home. There was
a great crowd on the wharves as the
vessel bearing them came in. AS soon
as the people saw (what they already
had been todd that only four of the
twenty-one were here-that none of the
others would ever come back-a realiz-
ing sense of it all broke in upon them
and they began to moan and cry. The
wailing grew; those who had lost
neither father, brother, nor husband
joined 1T in sympathy, and under force
of the tremendous emotion to which
negroes are subject, the lamentations
burst all ordinary bounds of express
ion. and women fell upon one another,
and sank down in a paroxysm of dread
and of grieving.
Nothing else disturbed Grenada,
though the people, mostly blacks, are
not convinced that the violences are
over. Indeed, as 1 write this, a man
hurries in to say that a telegram re-
ports that Soufriere has resumed ac-
tion again. One three-masted schoon-
er has hoisted her sails to try if there
is wind enough to start her toward
Porto Rico. She will give the uneasy
islands a wide berth. Though light,
the Havelock of Nova Scotia will not
consider any proposition to go near
enough to put a would-be passenger
ashore even at St Lucia, where there
is no trouble. Money is nothing"
the skipper says; Il am responsible
for this vessel, and another man owns
half of her. l would like to put you
off there as a favor" Zone can see
that he hates to refuse) But" he
goes on. looking at the CLASSY water,
1--WE had her only six months, and
she's new" These men who are on
sea continually, and brave it as call
ing, never tempt Providence. This
one is the third to decline money
to decline it when offered through his
employers-to go near islands from
which the reports of present condi-
lions are indefinite, and indicate no
positive ending of the phenomena
which have taken place. They are
God-fearing men, and it strikes one
| oddly. Outside an evangelical revival
| meeting one would never hear uncleri-
| cal men speak in terms so reverently
religious. 1t casually occurs to ordln-
airy stay-at-home persons after an ep-
isode like that al st. Pierre that man
farers, whose whole life is a breast
ing of the elements. it is just one
more nudge of the elbow from forces
they have learned to respect.
How Jones Escaped.
OF the four Grenadians who escaped
home with their lives, two are in hos
pital with severe hurts and two are
walking about. One, named Jones, has
lust told me his story. He is tall and
muscular, with a scant curly beard,
no trace of any blood except African,
vet with an accent of the English sort
that to some Americans sounds
swell" His story was heard by a
cynical mine prospector, who last year
went up the Orinoco river, lost every
thing, and barely got back to the coast
with his life and $3.50.
Jones said that on arriving at st.
Pierre on the morning of the first out
burst the harbormaster advised the
captain of the Roddam to anchor just
outside for a while. The crew did not
know why. There was cloud on
Mont Pelee. Scarcely had the harbor-
masters boat gone away shoreward
when two rosy balls shot up from Mont
Pelee. Then there was an explosion,
as of a thousand cannon close at hand.
Jones had a glimpse of an illumination
Gt was about O'Clock in the morning.,
and Immediately saw the town start
into flame. The Roddam was three
quarters of a mile out. He saw people
rush to and fro under the flames Che
moved his two hands quickly before
each other to ILLUSTRATED; then they
disappeared, sand there was nothing but
fire. Sand fell like rain on the deck,
and smoke rose, and there were shrieks
from his shipmates on deck. He ran to
the hatch and cut away the canvas,
and lifted one hatch wide enough to
let himself under. AS he dropped he
| saw the harbormasters boat go down
under the storm of fiery sand. Three
| men followed him-three Grenadians,
| his friends.
When they got to the next deck they
! dropped through the second hatch, and
| hid. and while doing so saw sailors who
were below when the explosion occur
/ red rush to the upper deck. They
were the ones who persisted. The YES
sci rose and lurched forward. This
was due to a tidal wave caused. as
! 1t is now known, by the sinking of the
bottom of the roadstead from its nor
NAL depth of 800 feet down to LEO. 1t
/ left the Roddam dry on the shore,
when another tidal wave came and
carried it bodily out seaward again.
| Then all was still. Jones went into
| the engine-room. The engineer sat
| tilted back in a chair by his engine,
dead. He held an open Bible clasped
| lightly against his breast as if he had
been reading 1t, and had just dozed off
before the flame from above reached
down, and turned him to charcoal