“Along the pebbled beach, once the most beautiful in the world, and a scene of wonted gayety, now all is desolation and awe. Human bodies, swollen and unrecognizable, were mingled with those of dead animals and reptiles, and the whole formed a scene so gruesome and so misshapen that the thought of it even sends a sickening thrill coursing through one’s veins.
“To add to the horror of the situation, human hyenas moved stealthily among the dead, robbing those who were powerless to resist, but these ghouls in human guise are meeting with just retribution, for armed sentinels are now on guard and have orders to shoot them down as they would mad dogs.
“If the situation along the East Side was more horrible than that along the West, it was only because more people dwelt there and there were more houses to be destroyed. Along either beach gaunt destruction held full sway, and each wave seemed more cruel than that which it succeeded. Nor were the waves alone in their cruelty, for the winds reveled in maddened fury and seemed to vie with them in spreading ruin and desolation.
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE CARRIED OUT TO SEA.
“The loss of life at Galveston will never be known. The storm came first from the northwest and hundreds, perhaps thousands, were carried far out to sea never more to return. At 10 o’clock at night the wind suddenly veered to the southeast and hundreds more were swept into the bay and caught by the current and also carried out to the sea before daylight Sunday morning. That is the opinion of old seamen with whom I conversed, and if they do not know the actions of the ocean, then no one does.
“Monday evening and Tuesday morning I myself saw more than a hundred bodies floating out to sea and these were scarcely one per cent of those who perished. Responsible men with whom I talked and who had been from one end of the island to the other, estimated the loss at from 5,000 to 10,000; and all thought it would come nearer the last named figures than the first. Day by day as the debris is cleared away bodies will be found and many are buried beneath the ruins that will never be removed.
IMPROVISED KITCHEN FOR FEEDING THE GALVESTON SUFFERERS
HON. WALTER C. JONES
MAYOR OF GALVESTON