There arrived in Dallas a score or more of men who told of decomposed bodies, and maggots and flies and starvation and distress until their hearers rushed away in horror. Some of these heart-breaking tales are given herewith.
Ed. A. Gebhard of The Dallas News came in from Texas City. He said:
“Among the many stories of the Galveston disaster I have seen none that fully describe the sight that presented itself around Texas City and Virginia Point on Monday. They all seem to lose the impressiveness that the narrator gave them when the centre of an excited group who were eager to know if friends or relatives were among the dead. Every word is heard or read ravenously all over the country, and when one has seen the ghastly faces of friends and acquaintances strewn ruthlessly among the grass and rubbish around Texas City and along that part of the bay shore he will not wonder that the world stands aghast.
“The corpses that had been thrown up by the cruel waters on the mainland were for the time being neglected for the field that contained thousands instead of hundreds. The remains of the old man of many winters, with the determined looking face, who gazed with intentness into the now cloudless skies, was kept silent company by a little miss whose smile would melt the heart of the most cruel man alive. Further on were the forms of women and children, most of which were entirely nude, the wind having been that severe that even the shoes were torn from their feet.
THROWN TOGETHER IN UTTER CONFUSION.
“I have seen tracks of many cyclones, but never have I seen the path of one that held the misery, the suffering and the general destruction that were occasioned by this hurricane, assisted by the sea.
“Furniture, household articles, pianos (complete and in part) and the carcasses of every kind of domestic animal were to be found in chaos. Even from the mainland could be seen the dire effects of the storm on the seaport of Texas—jagged walls, broken smokestacks, tin roofs suspended from their proper places or lying curled up at my feet in the bay, a distance of several miles from where they belonged. While it is natural for a person drowning to cling to whatever comes in their reach with that intensity that they cannot be disengaged, after death, without much trouble, this very thing lent much grewsomeness to the scene. Mothers with their children in their arms could not be separated from them, even by death.
“The piling of the destroyed railroad bridges had an occasional figure clinging to them. On nearer approach the head was seen to be thrown back as if to keep above water, and the features were distorted with horror as if in their last moments they realized the fatality of the attempt. The sea, not content with drowning the living and washing them away, desecrated the tombs of Galveston and several caskets were seen floating on the bosom of the quiet bay that morning and two or three were found on shore as if resentful at having their rightful rest disturbed.
“Many people from a distance moved only by a morbid curiosity, which I consider little short of criminal, crowded to Houston in order that they might go to the devastated city and view the misery and devastation, not willing to alleviate suffering or help to bury the dead. As for me, I trust I will never look on a sight as appalling, as heartrending, as desolate, while life lasts.”