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"It is a great pity," says the oldest
inhabitant, waving his shining cane in
the air, that you could not have come
here before the storm struck this grove.
You see how the trees are stripped and
twisted."
At last your companion has hit upon
the matter that is uppermost in your
mind, and so, gently - very gently and
cautiously, for fear of a relapse - you lead
the genial old gentleman to forget about
the antiquity of the old fort and the
practical utility of Port Royal harbor - "the most magnificent that the flag can
claim, sir -" and tell you some of the
experiences of the August tornado; to
give you some idea of the horror and
confusion of that vast elemental disturbance; and to present to your mind a
clear outline of results.
But this seems to be out of the
question. The memory of the oldest inhabitant is more to be depended on in the
recital of events that have become matters of tradition. He gives you details
that bear no definite relation to the large
results. The storm blasted hundreds
of landmarks that were a part of his
daily associations. Curious incidents
occur to his mind. A lad clinging to an
overturned dredge for thirty-six hours,
finally gave up all hope and sank back
into the water. The tide brought him
twenty miles to Beaufort and landed him
in a pile of driftwood near his mother's
door, where he was found and, strange
to say, restored to life. Immense lighters employed in the phosphate business
were lifted out of the water and driven far on shore. The barometer on the tug
Weymouth dropped to 27.60 and stood
there quivering like the hammer of an
alarm-clock. Yes! and a great many Negroes were drowned - hundreds of
them, poor things!
The impression left seems to be as
vague and as shapeless as the tempest
was. Nevertheless, the more active and
alert representatives of the younger
generation have no advantage over the
oldest inhabitant in the matter of definite information. Nor have the newspaper correspondents, nor has any
living soul, so far as I have been able to
discover. There are those who know
what was and who know what is; but
between what was and what is lies the
awful cataclysm of the storm. The
curtains of the night flapped over it;
the cavernous clouds enveloped it; the
raging tempest drowned it; the thundering tide covered it. The leaf from
the tree, the ship from the sea, and man
that was set to rule over all, became
companion atoms, and all were caught
by the storm and hurled into chaos. And
when the morning dawned, and the tide
fell, and the sun shone serenely over the
scene of wreck and devastation, there
was none left to tell the definite story
of the hurricane on the Sea Islands.
There is none to tell it today.
V
The oldest inhabitant is able to
remember some very severe storms, but
not such another year of storms. He is able to measure the intervals that
have elapsed between these disturbances, and from this measurement he
has constructed the comfortable theory
that after every severe storm there
must be a peaceful interlude of ten or
fifteen years. But to-day, as he stands
in the bright sunshine, the solemn mystery of the marshes. stretching away
before him as far as the eye can reach,
he shakes his head sadly, and digs his
cane feebly into the sand. His theory
has been blown northeastward into the
sea, and it is no wonder he sighs as he
walks by your side and points to signs
of the storms devastation that might
otherwise escape the eye of a stranger.
A house was here or a cabin. Near by
a shoal of dead bodies had been seen
drifting along, or were washed ashore.
Here was where a magnificent dock and
warehouse stood, but there is nothing
now to mark its site except a few scattered piles which, at low tide, are important only as showing the
architectural ability of the teredo, the insect
that eats them away. But the oldest
inhabitant has no appreciation of the
ability of the teredo. He lifts his
shaggy brows when you ask about it,
and dismisses the wonderful little worker in wood with a wave of the hand.
All around, and for miles and miles,
farther than the eye can reach, as far
as a shore bird can fly, the results of the
storm lie scattered. Here a house has
staggered upon its end, there a boat has
been flung into the arms of a live oak,
and yonder a phosphate dredge, weighing hundreds of tons, has been lifted
from the water and turned completely
over; here a magnificent grove of live
oaks has been uprooted; there a broad-beamed lighter has been lifted across
the marshes; and yonder hundreds of
tons of marsh sedge have been spread
over arable land.
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The old man casts his eyes seaward
across the long stretch of marshes that
lead to the inland shore of St. Helena.
A small column of smoke stands out
against the sky, and seems to be fixed
there. "The poor things!" he sighs. "They are trying to burn the marsh
sedge off their potato patches."
Then he grows reminiscent. He has
heard his father tell of the great storm
of 1804, which began on the morning
of the 8th of September and raged
until ten o'clock at night. Hundreds
of Negroes in the islands were drowned.
Eighteen vessels were destroyed in the
harbor of Savannah, and several large
boats were wrecked. The devastation
on the Sea Islands and all along the
South Atlantic coast was terrible, but
the story of the storm lost something
of its horror because there were no
lines of communication by which the
details could be gathered. They became known little by little, and so lost
something of their force and effect.
In 1830 a storm curved in from the
sea, striking the coast above Cape Hatteras and doing great damage to shipping. On September 10, 1854, a storm
of great violence passed over Savannah
and the Sea Islands, devastating the
whole coast region.  The yellow fever
was raging in Savannah at the time,
and the storm was accompanied by a
tidal wave that carried destruction with
it and left pestilence in its wake.
In 1873, a violent storm passed
between Cape Hatteras and the Bermudas,
striking the northern coast in the neighborhood of Nova Scotia and seriously
crippling the fishing industries of the
United States and Canada. Twelve
hundred and twenty-three vessels were
lost in this storm. In 1881 a storm
passed over the Sea Island region and
northwestward into Minnesota, pursuing a very unusual course. A tidal
wave accompanied the storm, and more
than four hundred persons lost their
lives.
On these dates, the oldest inhabitant
had formulated his storm-period theory.
Every tenth year he expected a storm.
If it failed then it was sure to come on
the twentieth year. And the theory
has had full confirmation in experience
until 1893, when the storm period was
reduced to a few brief weeks. There is
nothing for the oldest inhabitant to do
but to shake his head sadly, as much as
to say the times are out of joint, and
tell you of the more eccentric features
of the storm that is newest in his experience, the storm that has
caused more suffering
and loss of life than any
that has preceded it.
VI
The August hurricane
was not unexpected. In
fact it had been heralded,
and for at least three days
before it made its appearance warnings had been
given. The Weather Bureau, sensitive to such disturbances, had
found it in West Indian waters, and so
the announcement went forth that a
storm was forming in the neighborhood
of St. Thomas. Next day the bulletins
stated that the disturbance near St.
Thomas had moved slowly westward.
The day after came the announcement
that the West Indian storm, after moving to the west and then to the south,
had turned and was heading directly
for the South Atlantic coast.
How aptly these announcements
would fit the mad antics of some wild
and terrible monster! It is found roaring and wallowing in its tropical pasture. It runs westward, and
then southward, feeding and gathering strength as
it goes. Then turning about, it rushes
furiously northwestward, carrying terror before it, and leaving death and destruction in its path. One of its wings
touched Brunswick, a city already
stricken with the yellow plague, but the
touch was light. Savannah was more
directly in the path of the storm, and
the Sea Islands, that lie between that
city and Charleston, were exposed to
the full fury of the tempest. And the
winds fell upon them as if trying to
tear the earth asunder, and the rains
beat upon them as if to wash them away,
and the tide rose and swept over them
twelve feet above high-water mark. Pitiable as the story is, it may be condensed into a few words: near three
thousand people drowned, between
twenty and thirty thousand human beings without means of subsistence, their
homes destroyed, their little crops ruined, and their boats blown away.
The tangled thunders of chaos shook
the foundation of things. The bellowing waters of the sea leapt up and mingled with the shrieking spirits of the air.
Out of the seething depths disaster sprung, and out of the roaring heavens
calamity fell. No just and reasonable
estimate of the loss of life on these islands has been made. The adjacent
coast was prompt to tell of its losses
over the long tongue of the telegraph.
Its dead were known and identified. Its
searching-parties found them out. Its
tugs and launches brought them ashore.
But the Sea Islands were dumb, and
they are dumb to this day. When the
tide was friendly, it carried their dead
ashore, or lodged them in the rank
marsh sedge, but when the tide was
careless it drifted the bodies seaward.
In one little corner of St. Helena, the
coroner inspected eighty bodies that had
been thrown ashore, and then went on
about his business. Some were known,
but a great many were not identified and
never will be. All about the channels
and through the boatways in the waving marsh-grass, the bodies of the unknown drifted, and some floated miles
away. Some had their clothes torn
from them, mute witnesses of the fury
of the tornado. All this is to be heard
away from the islands. The islands themselves have not spoken, and they
will not speak. Gentle, patient, smiling, and good-humored, the Negroes have no complaints to
make. They discuss the storm among themselves, but
not in a way to impart much information to a white listener. They speak in monosyllables. They strip
phrases to
the bone and get to the core of words.
Their shyness is pathetic, and their
smiling patience is in the nature of a
perpetual appeal to those who come in
contact with them.
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