"A good many people had experiences similar to hers before the river broke through the railroad embankment just above the bridge here and swept tracks and everything else down upon the Cambria Iron Works. There they are, just behind us. I will mark them on the map—No. 11. Then the flow rushed through Cambria City, just below. That place is in a horrible condition—houses wrecked and streets full of débris. But there is no necessity of going there. You can see all the horrors you want right here.
"Look across the bridge, up the hill a little way. Do you see that old, tumble-down coal shed? It is where the Western Union established its office, and in that neighborhood most of the reporters have been living—sleeping in brick-kilns, hay lofts, tents, anywhere in fact. What a nice time they have had of it. They have suffered as much as the flood victims.
"Phew! What a stench. It comes from the débris in the river. It is full of the dead bodies of horses, dogs; yes, and of human beings. We hear stories occasionally of women being taken from that mass alive. They are false, of course, but there was one instance that is authentic. A woman was found one week after the flood still breathing. She had been caught in some miraculous way. She was taken to Pittsburgh, where she died. I was kicking about over the débris a day or two ago, and heard a cat mewing under the débris somewhere. I know half a dozen people who have rescued kittens and are caring for them tenderly. A flood cat will command a premium before long, I have no doubt.
"Ha! What's that? Yes, it is a body. The sight is so common now that people pay no attention to it. We have been living in the midst of so much death, of so many scenes of a similar character, that I suppose the sensibilities have become hardened to them. There, they are placing the body on a window shutter and are carrying it up to the school-house. It will be laid on a board placed over the tops of the children's desks. You will notice coffins piled up all about the school-house. Of course, the body is awfully disfigured and cannot be identified. The clothing will be described and the body hurried away to its nameless grave.
Fragment of a Bible.
"Have you enough? Then let us walk back toward headquarters and go down upon the flat into the centre of the town. What is that you have there? A piece of a Bible? Yes, you will find lots of leaves lying around. There is a story—I don't know how true it is—that many people have thrown their Bibles away since the flood, declaring that their belief, after the horrors they have witnessed, is at an end. I can hardly credit this. But there is one curious thing that is certain, and everybody has noticed it. Books and Bibles have been found in the rubbish all over the town, and in a great many instances they are open at some passage calling attention to flood and disaster. I have found these myself a dozen times. It is a remarkable coincidence, to say the least.
"Some people may find a warning in all this. I don't pretend to say, but as we walk along here let me tell you of a conversation I had with a man who was worth nearly $20,000 before the flood. He has lost every cent, and is glad enough to get his daily meals from the supplies sent here.
"'I don't know what to think of Johnstown,' he said. 'We have been called a wicked place. Perhaps all this is a judgment. Just when we have been most prosperous some calamity has come upon us. We were never more prosperous than when this flood overwhelmed us.'
"Well here we are back at General Hastings' headquarters. Now we will go down the embankment, cross the river and plunge ahead into town.