The China Mail.
HONGKONG, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1881.
YESTERDAY'S STORM.
EXTENSIVE DESTRUCTION AT YAU-MAH-TI
Yau-mah-ti suffered very severely from the storm last night. Over two hundred and fifty (250) junks or boats of one kind or another were in the Bay, and these, one and all, seemed to ride out the fury of the gale pretty well until, between 7 and 8 o'clock, the wind changed to the south-east, and a time set in of serious storm, and much greater damage was done than had ever been up till then anticipated. The craft to the number we have mentioned began to drift surely and rapidly down, one upon another, and were piled up, junk above junk and sampan upon sampan, nearly all along the Praya more or less, but most particularly in the corner of the South side of the Wharf.
Three large cargo boats, laden to the full with Chinese goods of every description intended for transmission to San Francisco, the cargo alone valued at some thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) and insured to that sum, were completely broken up; and the goods with which they had been laden, if not washed ashore in an almost worthless condition, were sunk or scattered to the four winds of heaven.
The Police, however, to their credit be it said, succeeded in taking off from these junks as many as 39 persons all told, including nine children, all being rescued by means of lines thrown or carried out and utilized by those Europeans who were at hand and exerted themselves; of whom more hereafter.
The manner of rescuing the children from the straits in which they and those in whose charge they were, were placed, may show, with some degree of effect, the condition to which matters were reduced. The boats were end on and or side by side. The huge sea that was on, at the time kept the whole mass of them heaving to an extent that was simply frightful to behold; at the one moment one craft was on the crest of a wave which poetic license would justify one in describing as "mountains high," and the other being lost to sight in the trough of the sea or rather in the deep and dark threatening hollow between the breakers which compassed her on either side.
The next moment the positions of the craft were reversed as the turbulent sea heaved and tossed the vessels about. Under such circumstances the European members of the Police Force, to whom almost exclusively is due the great credit of saving a vast amount of human life, had to throw, send, or carry lines with which to bring the men and women on shore.
They had to form themselves, in the case of these cargo-boats we have mentioned, into a row from the outermost boat to the shore, from one member of which to another, the children were, not handed, but literally thrown, pitched sometimes several feet. In all cases, the police, however, proved careful, steady, precise and successful. In that case a young boy of tender years was thrown right into the water and fell between two boats, which had by the force of the waves been carried away from each other with a sudden jerk, just at the moment one pair of hands tossed the child to another.
It was only the work of a moment, however, to recover the child, although it was possible to do that only at considerable risk to those who accomplished the rescue.
A large number of boat people, men, women and children, were landed by lines which were thrown from the end of the wharf and from the south end of the Praya. There were also many helped on shore who would, but for the aid given by those who were engaged in the work of rescuing the unlucky storm-overtaken sea-farers, have certainly been either drowned, or killed by crushing, or seriously hurt by the timbers and wreckage from which they were doing their best to escape.
In more than one case one or other of the police hands went out on board the craft from which it was desired to bring the people on shore. One poor woman, who was dragged on shore more dead than alive, had her little baby, an infant of certainly not more than a month or two, tied on to her back, "China-fashion."
It was only by the greatest care and good treatment, for which as much as for their bravery the Police and above all their humane and intrepid head, Inspector J. B. Cameron, are greatly to be praised,—that all these people, 207, were preserved safe and well and cared for in the Police Station all night, to their hearts' content.
At Yau-mah-ti as here there was as great a difficulty in getting the Chinese to allow themselves to be saved as there was in saving them. The latter task only required British pluck and strength, which were there in as large a measure as they are generally to be found amongst an equal number of men.
The former necessitated a persuasive eloquence as to the facts of the present and probabilities of the future which there were neither the men nor the moments to expend. At first few of the Chinese could be brought to avail themselves of the offer made on behalf of the noble, rescuing band working on shore, to save them by bringing them to terra firma.
It was only when they began to see the storm increasing rapidly and becoming one of unmitigated ferocity and when they witnessed junk after junk and boat after boat, smashed into match-wood, that they really appreciated the seriousness of the situation and were eager or even willing to submit themselves to be saved from a watery grave or a cruel death.
In their case, they said, when afterwards examined upon the point, it was, if they were to lose their boat and their all, perhaps as well that they should die too. What had they to live for, if everything was taken from them? Some others seemed to think they bore a charmed existence.
There could be no typhoon, by any possibility, and consequently they could not be drowned, they said, because it was too late in the season. Others comforted themselves with the Fatalist's comfort that if their time was come it was come and nothing could arrest what was going to happen; if their time was not come then they could not be carried off, and anything they did to save themselves from drowning was simply so much trouble wasted.
When it became apparent, however, to the most cursory observer, that not only did an extremely serious time threaten,