The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-05-14
MORE STORIES OF
CATASTROPHE
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! for a modest sum, considering the oc-
casion. carted me and my effects out to
First avenue, where [ bethought me of
some friends who were furthest from
| the flames, but badly frightened as 1T
| looked as if they, too, would go. How
ever. they didn t. although we looked
| for it for two more weary days and one
more sleepless night. BY Friday night
! I'd forgotten how to sleep. Add to
| this cooking out of doors on five or SIX
| lv-balanced bricks; no water save IN
pals from an adjacent cemetery brook
| (pleasing associations); sentrles ready
| to shoot if one even struck match Gas
| did in a vain attempt to lind some
bed clothes in the dark; no food save
what I'd brought out myself with my
Yankee forethought) BY Saturday
morning I'd enough and 1t was case
of get across the bay if l had to walk
the six miles to the ferry and drag my
luggage by a string, as thousands did,
poor souls.
.1But fortune again favored me and
chance cab-rubber- tired at that t!
conveyed the last remains of yours
truly to the ferry, which in turn con-
veyed her to Comparative clvllIza-
ton and comfort across the bay.
.sWhat ruined city we crawled |
through AS far as the eye could see, .
practically to the horizon-line IN all
directions, nothing but smoking ruins
Fancy! They had to point out Market
street to me when I reached it. and L
thought I knew every square inch OF It's
pavement.
s3The scrape of trunk over a side
walk will, to my dying day, send shlv-
ers down my vertebrae, because for
twenty-four hours I watched and heard
countless thousands of every known
nationality, push their trunks slowly,
painfully up the Post-street hill. Par
rots! Nv God! I didn It know what
did become of all of those uncanny
beasts the Pacific Mail brings up the
coast, until that day. Canary birds,
dogs, cats; old ladies pushing a chair
full of pots and pans; Cinnamon drag
ging fatirons. /,
oAnd then that dreadful drunken
orgie at night through which l thead- {
ed my lonely way, watching for the
hres to meet. Rum was free, and many
of those poor devils, vomited up from {
the south of Market street burrows, !
evidently thought the end of all had
come and they might as well GO out in
d DuTSb VI S1OIJ- lhCy u uiAhh I'LL Inv
bottle dropped from their hands and
broke. Whiskey seemed to run down
Post street. I picked my way over
broken glass. Occasionally a woman
would wave a bottle at me and say:
90 Have a drink, lady; 1t IL do you {
good.
% But on the whole, they paid little
or no attention to my lonely vigil. For
once in my life l saw human nature in
1ulk absolutely bereft of self conscious
ness. When such is the case one may
oank the cause can be only the acme of 4
he extraordinary.
''The papers are full of Hot air.
over the greatheartedness and other &
qualities of the mob. 1t
1idn It strike Post street. 1t was case
IF each for himself like any other
stampede of cattle.
''When I knew we had to run for our 4
ives, the first day, ] decked myself
but in my 'gladdest- rags, as long as t
my carrying capacity was limited. In {
these you might have seen me frying t
chicken on the brick oven in the street, /
while a cavalcade of wagons and goods /
md chattels, autos, carriages drawn by /
horses and men, passed by raising a t
lust that added brown gravy, all that {
ny chicken needed. -