find our
way there I was welcome to a soft place on the floor. We spoke to the
nearest picket. He told us that it would be madness to try to cross one
part of the ground unless we had revolvers, because a gang of Huns were
in hiding ready to knock down passengers and hold up any one who seemed
defenceless. However, after a little cogitating, he said that he would
escort us to General Hastings' headquarters, and we started, picking our
way over the remains of streets and passing over great obstructions that
had been left by the torrent. Ruin and wreck were on every hand. You
could not tell where one street began and another left off, and in some
places there was only soft mud, as devoid of evidence of the former
presence of buildings as a meadow is, though they had been the sites of
business blocks. It was washed clean.

A Weird Journey.

Our guide told us the details of the capture of five marauders who had
been robbing the dead. They had cut off the head of a woman found in the
debris to get her earrings. He said that a number of deputy sheriffs had
declared that at dawn they would march to the place where the prisoners
were and take them out and hang them. My military friend said that he
and his comrades would not be particularly anxious to interfere. The
scene as we picked our way was lighted up by camp fires, around which
sat groups of deputy sheriffs in slouch hats. They were a grim looking
set, armed with clubs and guns. A few had rifles and some wore revolvers
in their belts in regular leather cowboy pockets. The camp fires were
about two hundred yards apart and to pass them without being challenged
was impossible. At the adjutant general's office we got a pass entitling
us to pass the pickets, and bidding our guardsman good-night we started
off escorted by a deputy sheriff. There were long lines of camp fires
and every few rods we had to produce credentials. It was a pretty effect
that was produced by the blazing logs. They lighted up the valley for
some distance, throwing in relief the windowless ruins of what were once
fine residences, bank buildings or factories. Embedded in the mud were
packages of merchandise, such as sugar in barrels, etc., and over these
we stumbled continually.

A Muddy Desert.

Streams were running through the principal streets of the city. In some
parts all that was left of the thoroughfares were the cobble stones--by
which it was possible to trace streets for a short distance