The Hawaiian gazette., 1906-03-16
SOUTH SEAS
SWEPT BY
HURRICANE

lowed by one of the most disastrous
hurricanes ever known in the South
Seas.
More than one hundred islands were
devastated, the principal island, Ia
hiti. probably suffering less in proper
tion to its Importance than any Of the
others, and about $4,000 persons were
affected by the great disaster.
There has been no such other trag-
edy in the South Seas during modern
times, and it is improbable that the
historic devastation, similar in nature,
Of about 125 years ago was of such
serious consequence.
The water front of Papeete suffered
terribly, being almost totally destroyed
and houses swept two or three hundred
yards uptown. The postoffice and the
harbor masters residence were entire
ly destroyed. The streets are obstruct-
ed by broken houses, furniture, lumber
and beddings. What was once thriv-
ing town is now barren waste.
If during the day Of February 9Th a
southeast gale had sprung up there
would not have remained one stone
upon another in the whole town.
In the harbor of Papeete lies an
island called Motu-Uta. 1t is used as a
powder deposit by the French govern
ment, and also as a quarantine station,
one man alone living there, acting as a
guardian of the powder. When the sea
rose to an enormous height and was
washing the houses and everything else
from the island, this man thought to
save his life, but when he went to get
the boat he found it had been washed
away. With lantern he made distress
signals to the shore, which were duly
noted by the people there. The French
gunboat Zelee did not send boat to
him, but the pilot of Papeete had to 60
and beg boat of the commander of
the gunboat. The pilot manned it and
tried heroically three times to get to
the poor mans assistance, but the task
was already hopeless and the island
guardian was doomed.
Captain Lawless of the Oceanic
steamer Mariposa, which reached San
Francisco from Tahiti on March Sd,
said:
''At Papeete the waves wrecked the
houses along the beach and for two
hundred yards back. The merchants
suffered great loss, but the natives,
who mostly live near the water front,
lost all they had. Their all is very lit
tie at any time, but it is great deal
TO them Clothes of light material,
prints and calicoes and money to buy
nails, hinges and lumber would be a
help. Food, too, suppose, would be in
order. However, people who know
their condition will say that the suffer
ing will be greater in month or two,
as nearly all the food trees are blown
down. After leaving Tahiti
we Rspt sharp lookout for derelicts.
At daylight we sighted a
schooner, which we shaped our course
\ for. When she came up we found a
crew of excited men, who told us in
Vehement language that the islands
Were all swept away. They came from
some island east of Ranjerva, probably
Takarava, and were bound to Tikahau
for provisions.
DETAILS OF DISASTER.
The Chronicle of March 4, received
yesterday, says:
A hundred years of calm in the
South seas has been broken by the
greatest hurricane that even tradition
that no man can estimate the loss of
life on the chain of islands that forms
the Society and Taumotu groups, or
which the city of Papeete, on the north
ern coast of Tahiti, is the capital.
Since the men of the English man-of-
war Bounty mutinied there in 1890
there has been no event in the history
of Tahiti of such Importance as the
hurricane that laid waste the fair isles
on the 9TH and Sth of last month. No
man knows how many lives were
swept into the sea, nor how many
homes were destroyed, but there were
many, for ships passing afterward saw
only desolate atolls and sand-swept
reaches, where the palm and the cocoa
nut and matched houses stood before.
Where channels were these ships founu
jagged reefs, and the mouths of lagoon-
that, since the first discoveries, had of
fered refuge to craft were closed by
bars of flotsam and jetsam, with nj
life in sight where little children haC
played day before and from time i'm
memorial on the shining sands.
News of this terrible visitation o
the elements to the South sea island
was brought TO the outside world b.
the Oceanic steamer Mariposa, arriving
yesterday morning, less than twelv
days from Papeete. captain Lawles
of the Mariposa and his officers and al
the passengers arriving from Papeet,
spoke of this hurricane as a thing tina
could not be described, though at tn
port of Papeete they saw with thei
own eyes what wind and sea ha
wrought For 200 yards back from th
waters edge along the coast of Tahiti
the sea had suddenly surged, even be
fore the hurricane arose, and nearly
hundred houses and homes We're swep
from the earth like abodes Of san,
And following this stealthy approac
of the tidal wave was the roaring win
that struck Tahiti with the force d
many ordinary hurricanes, whippin
the placid sea in twenty minutes int
maelstrom that must have carrie
many vessels 90 their doom, and thl
frightened men on shore by It's tremel
d0us fury
WAVES SIXTY FEET HlHlI,
Waves estimated by mariners Co. l
sixty feet In height leaped with brdke
eTests from the plain surface ~ the sci
Ms though volcano had broken Out