t once had been the make-up of
a thriving city. But that cordon of wreckage skirting the shore for
miles it seemed, often twenty feet in height, and against which the high
tide still lapped and rolled! What did it tell? The tale is all too
dreadful to recall--the funeral pyre of at least five thousand human
beings. The uncoffined dead of the fifth part of a city lay there. The
lifeless bodies festering in the glaring heat of a September sun told
only too fatally what that meant to that portion of the city left alive.
The streets were well-nigh impassable, the animals largely drowned, the
working force of men diminished, dazed, and homeless. The men who had
been the fathers of the city, its business and its wealth, looked on
aghast at their overwhelmed possessions, ruined homes, and, worse than
all, mourned their own dead.

Yet these men, to the number of thirty or more, had, as one may say,
pulled themselves together, and were even at that early date a relief
committee, holding their meetings at the wrecked and half-ruined hotel,
almost the only public house left standing. To this hotel we also went
and reported to the committee. To say that we were kindly and
gratefully received by them says nothing that would satisfy either
ourselves or them.

The conditions were so new to them that it was a relief to meet persons
who had seen such things before. We were asked not only to act with
them, but to assume charge of the administration of relief. This, of
course, we would not do, but that we would meet with, counsel, and aid
them in every way in our power, is needless to affirm. That we did do
this, through every day of our stay of three months, not only our own
conviction, but the unasked and unexpected testimony of both Galveston
and the Legislature of the State of Texas, go to assure.

On the third day after our arrival we were joined by Mr. Stephen E.
Barton, President of the former Central Cuban Relief Committee, and Mr.
Fred L. Ward, its competent secretary, who became our secretary from the
time of his arrival until the close of the field, continuing until after
our return to headquarters and settling the last account. Not only the
thanks of the Red Cross are due for his faithful, painstaking work, but
his name is still a household word through the score of counties
skirting the shore on the mainland of Texas.

It may be interesting to readers to know what is done first, or just how
a relief party commence under c