DESCRIPTION BY AN EYEWITNESS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 115, 18 May 1906, Page 2

DESCRIPTION BY AN EYEWITNESS.

AN IMPRESSIVE SPECTACLE

THE PROGRESS OF THE FIRE

REFUGEES' PRIVATIONS

[PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

AUCKLAND, May 18

Amongst the passengers by tho Moana-are Mr and -Ma-s Sbipman,":who arrived at San Francisco the .night before the earthquake, and ,had .apartments on the eleventh floor, of. the St. Francis Hotel. . ..•''...

Mr Shipman says; ..■■" We were awakened by the earthquake, at 5.13. As soon as the hotel became stationary 1 went to the window and saw the stairs crowded with guests—men and women frantically rushing .into .the streets in their: night-clothes. ; It was the nearest to a stampede. I have ever seen. After getting dressed, . Mrs— Shipman and Invent downstairs. We met a man in pyjamas, pale and breathless, who informed us that the •- city was in flanwr^at least twenty different places in the city being doomed to destruction. We found the square opposite the hotel crowded with people sitting on the household goods from their homes, which had collapsed or been burned. Standing in Market Street, looking down Third Street, we could see the flames rapidly eating their way to Market Street. About 8.30 the militia marched down Market Street, stationing soldiers at intervals. The authorities placed the city under martial law. The crowd moved morbidly down Market Street, silent and dazed, watching the spread and approach" of ■ the . devastating flames. None seemed to want to speak. The streets presented an odd aspect, husbands and wives carrying bundles, suspended from their shoulders. Everything propellable by human motive power was pressed into service,piled up with household effects, from trunks to green parrots—all travelling in the same direction, away from the flames.. At two o'clock the flames covered apparently half the centre of the city;m crescent shape; at six, Mission Street, the end of the crescent, had burned itself out, and carried the fire to the wholesale districts and water-front north of Market Street. At nine o'clock the fire was near the St. Francis Hotel from both ends of the crescent. Bell-boys, more dead than I alive, were requisitioned to carry j trunks and valises from the hotel. We i left the building hastily, the buildings !on both sides of the hotel being .on •fire. Twice we were ordered to leave our things and get out of danger by soldiers dynamiting buildings to stop the progress of the fire. v Everybody seemed to be dragging trunks and goods into the streets, which "were crowded with refugees. Next morning we got our effects, removed to Alta Plaza. We camped there for three nights; the first night we Slept on our trunks, the second oir-a mattress,, and j the third in a tent with steamer blan- ; k'ets. For two days we lived on biscuitsj and watery tße third day relief parties brought us provisions. I,and others were pressed into Service by the soldiers, making the ■ park sanitary, digging trenches and cleaning up refuse. There were perhaps a hundred families in Alta-Plaza." . ; ...