to the plaza and dropped, with the breath
out of them, among the huddled people and the bundles of household
goods. The soldiers, who are administering affairs with all the justice
of judges and all the devotion of heroes, kept three or four buckets
of water, even from the women, for these men, who kept coming all night
long. There was a little food, also kept by the soldiers for these
emergencies, and the sergeant had in his charge one precious bottle
of whisky, from which he doled out drinks to those who were utterly
exhausted.

"Over in a corner of the plaza a band of men and women were praying, and
one fanatic, driven crazy by horror, was crying out at the top of his
voice:

"'The Lord sent it, the Lord!'

"His hysterical crying got in the nerves of the soldiers and bade fair
to start a panic among the women and children, so the sergeant went over
and stopped it by force. All night they huddled together in this hell,
with the fire making it bright as day on all sides; and in the morning
the soldiers, using their sense again, commandeered a supply of bread
from a bakery, sent out another water squad, and fed the refugees with a
semblance of breakfast.

"There was one woman in the crowd who had been separated from her
husband in a rush of the smoke and did not know whether he was living.
The women attended to her all night and in the morning the soldiers
passed her through the lines in her search. A few Chinese made their
way into the crowd. They were trembling, pitifully scared and willing
to stop wherever the soldiers placed them. This is only a glimpse of the
horrible night in the parks and open places.

"We learn here that many of the well-to-do people in the upper residence
district have gathered in the strangers from the highways and byways and
given them shelter and comfort for the night in their living rooms and
drawing rooms. Shelter seems to have come more easily than food. Not an
ounce of supplies, of course, has come in for two days, and most of the
permanent stores are in the hands of the soldiers, who dole them out to
all comers alike. But the hungry cannot always find the military stores
and the news has not gotten about, since there are no newspapers and no
regular means of communication.

"An Italian tells me that he was taken in by a family living in a
three-story house in the fashionable Pacific Avenue. There were twenty
refugees who passed the night in the drawing room of that house, whose