ad to face.
Later in the day the First Regiment of California National Guards was
called out and put on duty, with similar orders.

RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.

The work of fighting the fire was the first and greatest duty to be
performed, but from the start it proved a very difficult, almost a
hopeless, task. With fierce fires burning at once in a dozen or more
separate places, the fire department of the city would have been
inadequate to cope with the demon of flame even under the best of
circumstances. As it was, they found themselves handicapped at the start
by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had disarranged and
broken the water mains and there was scarcely a drop of water to be had,
so that the engines proved next to useless. Water might be drawn from
the bay, but the centre of the conflagration was a mile or more away,
and this great body of water was rendered useless in the stringent
exigency.

The only hope that remained to the authorities was to endeavor to check
the progress of the flames by the use of dynamite, blowing up buildings
in the line of progress of the conflagration. This was put in practice
without loss of time, and soon the thunder-like roar of the explosions
began, blasts being heard every few minutes, each signifying that some
building had been blown to atoms. But over the gaps thus made the flames
leaped, and though the brave fellows worked with a desperation and
energy of the most heroic type, it seemed as if all their labors were
to be without avail, the terrible fire marching on as steadily as if a
colony of ants had sought to stay its devastating progress.

THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.

It was with grief and horror that the mass of the people gazed on this
steady march of the army of ruin. They were seemingly half dazed by the
magnitude of the disaster, strangely passive in the face of the ruin
that surrounded them, as if stunned by despair and not yet awakened to
a realization of the horrors of the situation. Among these was the
possibility of famine. No city at any time carries more than a few days'
supply of provisions, and with the wholesale districts and warehouse
regions invaded by the flames the shortage of food made itself apparent
from the start. Water was even more difficult to obtain, the supply
being nearly all cut off. Those who possessed supplies of food and
liquids of any kind in many cases took advantage of the opportunity to
advance their prices. Thu