“To keep me from thinking I thought I would write these few lines. There is rock falling all over. We have our buckets full of water, seep water, and we drink it and bathe our heads in it.
*******
“Seven fifty o’clock in the morning. This is Sunday. There is no air. We have fanned ourselves with the lids of our buckets. Twenty five after 9 and black damp coming both ways. Twenty five after 10 we gave up all hope. We have done all we could. The fan had better start above soon. Twenty five after 10 A.M. Sunday. We are still alive, the only hope is the fan.
“I think I won’t have strength to write pretty soon. Fifteen after 12 o’clock Sunday. If they can’t give us air, we will make fans ourselves. We take turns at the fan. We have three of them going. Twenty seven to 3 P.M. and the black damp is coming in on us.
“Only for the fans we would be dead. Eleven to 4 P.M. dying for want of air. We have six fans moving. One after another fifteen feet apart. We all had to come back. We can’t move front or backward. We can stand it with our fans until Monday morning.
“Fifteen after 2 A.M. Monday. Am still alive. We are cold, hungry, weak, sick and everything else. Alfred Howard is still alive. 9.15 A.M.
“Monday morning, still breathing. Something better must turn up or we will soon be gone. Eleven fifteen A.M. still alive at this time. Sixteen to 1 P.M. Monday, we are still getting weak, Alfred Howard as well as the rest of us.”
The Town Crier
Doctor Roland Williams was an author of considerable distinction; he was, at one time, professor in the College of St. David’s, Lampeter, South Wales, but had difficulty with the faculty of that institution. He exiled himself to a neighboring town, where he died, leaving in his will fifty pounds to the town of Lampeter, one-third of the income of which is perpetually to be given to the town crier, “for making proclamation once a year, about midsummer, on a market day, that he, Roland Williams, never consented to the election of George Lewellin to a scholarship in this college, but in this and other things he was foully slandered by men in high places; because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, he died in exile; but while unjust men permitted this, he both kept the needy student by his right, and defended the alms of the altar of God.”