Tragedy and Broken Hopes Strew Desolate Wastes of Murchison

NZ Truth, Issue 1230, 27 June 1929, Page 7

Tragedy and Broken Hopes Strew Desolate Wastes of Murchison

„-■■•;'■•■■, , • , , , IN assessing the havoc wreaked by the earthquakes which rent the hills of Murchison, too great stress has been, laid upon the ■.areas of land' twisted and gnarled .by the onrushing rubble which swept over them; too much has been made of blocked roads, roaring detonations, swollen nvers quake-crazy houses.and smashe jfS;-^r^^rt SrtclS^in?^^ll^^ many poignant little tragedies of ,life represented by the car loads and lorry loads of fear-shaken, stricken refugees

-who fled'along the roads between Mur-i chison and Nelson. Many,_pen pictures, vivia enough m their way, were fashioned across the. telegraph lines, but of the Women, and. children, and:men, who bowed their-heads to over.whelming disaster—personal and financial—there were but a tew faint streaks of description^ This story,' then, must be firstly of personal, contacts made by a representative of "N.Z. Truth" with home-, less, penniless settlers and their,families—in the streets of' Nelson; the town m which they,found shelter; on the very doorstep's' of the small Nature--wracked places they once called "Home," and' from which they were strewn roads', over "which the rescuing camera of memory be changed m focus, when shall-, be ■ measured the, dimensions of. disaster that befell" the fields of agriculture, the sluices of outback gold proepectors,, the homesteads of those who now ■ wandec aimlessly along and around • the sidewalks of refugees who .fled from the cannonades of . the enemy;;' whose homes were blasted and whose livelihood was wrenched from them by the furious onslaughts of gas and shell, and who po light respite m the comparative shelter of England, found reflection m the circumstances of those who, a few days ago, scrambled painfully from the galloping: hills and ; fissure-streaked valaway from its-base and whirled LU h0 a S cro n s d s S °tVeir nS SfiSf'tSSt overwhelming her 16-year-old brother who ; was, working m a paddock not a quarter of a mile away. • marched over.her small holding. Four niffhts of sleeplessness, little food, bitter winds from the ranges, pelting rain from the clouds. . > Their sole protection a few blankets, barely covered by a strip of American cloth which they had salvaged from the kitchen table. .!'.... These are but a few of the pathetic narratives related to "Truth," told by pale-faced women who had passed

through the terrors'of the Fit, and by ed and smoked-from the far end of the tent, Dave came up to him, saying: "A good pub, eh?" v These men—Patterson, who worked night and day to effect repairs to telephone and telegrapji between Murchison and Glenhope, the nearest rail head;-Thorn and Spiers, who organised a vigilance committee to prevent, among other things, the pillaging of the two hotel bars, „•. oreater' sti|| they directed { *uieJ™lt?Zn^ ''mSi^S f" s e nei ghboring hamlets, superih- ;".,£• de; arture of refugees ' *t? 1™; fen.^TyhfpßWpr.ls ! n £ e JZ™?he Zml : t0 traverse tne nius. And Hugh Fraser? He worked with

them all, directing, commanding, advising, working hard and sleeping little There were unpleasant-■things to hear, as well. It seems that no matter hafc tne occasion> nor how streSsful the momen£ there ai ways is the. ybllow t, c Qf meanneas mied m here and there by aaco _c individual> The wartime stories of men who rifled the pockets of wounded Diggers is almost parallel with one wnich came before the notice of "Truth" while its representative was talking to a group of men in' the main street of Murchison. , Throughout the first few days dozens of exhausted children and sick women ■

came straggling into the township — footsore, a good many faint with loss w.irilltl, niirl qtilT,,ii.,<-,•„,, nf iir-niriv or ™itlKnd stimulation of lnandy or some sucn spine The two hotels—Ross's and the New Commercial —were m chaos, and because a few toughs had raided the bars, the organisers of search and other parties were forced to barricade the doors, so v preserving the small stock of stimulants which remained.

____ . . — — — -c One night a man went, up to .Spiers, telling him that a woman had just come m from a long trek -and was m a fainting condition. Would Spiers give him; a little brandy for her? Spiers was pretty busy at the t|me, and did riot think to question the man as to the whereabouts of the woman, but simply gave his informant the remains, of small,' flask of brandy, which he carried m case of emergency. A few minutes later another member of the organising party told Spiers he had seen the man drinking from a brandy flask, and thought the man must have gained admission to one of the hotels. Spiers was furious when he heard this, because the identity of the man who sought spirits for a sick woman was that of the man whom another had- seen empty a flask, at the back' of a house situated only a short distance from where Spiers had stood. Thereafter a very close watch was kept on the issue of -spirits. .The experience of Mr. and Mrs. O'Rourke and their children, terrifying as it undoubtedly was, is. merely a replica of the memories which have hef>n hammered into the lives and minds of many others. It seems terrible that tragedy should have become so commonplace. The O'Rourkes were farming m the Ariki district, about twelve miles by road to the westward of Murchison, and on the morning of the first shake O'Roin-ke left home about eight o'rlock with the intention of taking his lorry into a Murchison garage, where it was to undergo some minor but nevertheless necessary repairs. . After a good deal of trouble with the lorry he arrived at his destination, watched the mechanic effect the removal of the coil, then waited to see what caused the trouble. So far as he can remember it was about twenty minutes past ten when the first slight tremor commenced jolting the building, to be followed by two or three others of more decided vigor. Then: "The next moment it was something terrific, and as I looked through the garage doorway I noticed the hill and the bush going up like a moving picture. "Some distance away, where the Busch's were smothered. I could see the whole hillside breaking up, and just as I turned round to tell the others to look I was thrown over on to my back. "I tried to look round again, to see how the others were faring, and I could just see them' rolling around like oddments. We couldn't stand, and when I tried to get on to my feet I was bowled over like a ninepin.' "The only way m which I could get along was on my hands and knees, so I crawled out of the garage and over to the fence, and got up m that way. "All the electric power wires came crashing down, and they frightened us more than anything else. After things had subsided a bit, T went down the town to see if anyone needed assistance, but no one appeared to have been hit with anything, although there was wreckage and chimneys lying about all over the place. "I don't suppose there is one sound house m the whole place." O'Rourke then went on to describe the way m which the- hills that screen Murchison from the westerly winds seemed to burst asunder, one half sweeping over the Maruia Valley settlements, the other charging : across the Matakitaki, at the base of which flowed the river of the same name, about half a mile from Murchison, and running parallel with the northsouth road which winds through the town. Tremors and violent Upheavals contmuco* throughout the. day, and O'Rourke was nearly demented with " the fear that his wife and children might be wiped out by. 'the concussion which had hurled a. hillside across the farmsteads of the Busches and the Morels, who, lived scarcely more than a mile- along the Matakitaki Valley road fijom Murchison. About half-past seven that night, after several attempts at getting away, O'Rourke and his brother "Amby" left on their rescue expedition. For about two miles the lorry was able to negotiate the crazy, rockstrewn roads which once led from the township to the Ariki district, but the combined obstacles of rubble and bush which had trailed along m the ,wake of repeated landslides, and tremendous j gaps which stretched for dozens of yards across and along the road itself made further progress impossible. They, had travelled along the Matiri Valley road, which lies m a northerly direction, and had intended to skirt" the hillswhich at any moment threatened to rend themselves yet again, but the road to the Ariki had completely disappeared. . After they had gone sonle distance on foot they met a fanner friend,' Bunn by name, and Middlemiss, a Public Works roadman, bpth of whom advised the O'Rourkes to abandon their search that night, because of the way m which the whole countryside had been twisted and smashed, the risk of being, lost m country which had suffered violent change, and the added danger of 'plunging suddenly into one of the , many crevasses which had formed since that morning. Bunn arid Middlemiss also conveyed the news that, so. far as they knew, all the folk m the Ariki Valley were ' alive, and when the O'Rourkes heard this they decided to return to Murchison. But what of Mrs.: O'Rourke,- and their five-years-old boy, Bob, and " Marjorie, two-and-a-half years his senior? ; • V The poor woman was too frightened to think of anything.' When first the ground commenced., 'quivering and leaping she was working abbut the house, with young Bob playing alongside her. - • •'•■'■ • •-'. •■:„'■'•• -

> — __ . __ - C As the shaking, trembling house did not at first sway with any marked degree of violence she decided to remain there, but when the side-sway became punctuated with terrific, jolting up-thrusts, when ornaments and dinner ware were hurled across the rooms, tables overturned and chairs thrust from one side of the kitchen to the other, she became almost paralysed

with fear, not only for herself and her son. but also for her daughter who was then at school some distance down tno valley. Tile boy clung, terrified, to his mother's skirts. waning piteously. After a while the detonations which accompanied or preceded the heavier earth thrusts gradually diminished, and although the ground continued to tremble the demoralising racket and sensation of sound and movement of these angrier earth-shakings abate 1, and the distracted woman left the place for the open air. Some "time later Miss Margaret Westbrook, the school teacher,

came along the valley road with Marjorie, and the reunion between mother and daughter was pathetic. Now that she had her two children with her, Mrs: O'Rourke's next thought' was for her husband, for no news of him had reached her since be left with the lorry the previous day, nor had she any id^ea of. bow Murchison had fared. She 'knew that the township' of Mvr T ohiso'n lay directly m the path of the earthquake," 'while' the fallen. -power lines told her that m all probability town . and country had alike been served, "' ■ .- ' * The telephone service was completely severed, the hills had changed completely m formation, she knew the (iiiiiiiiU'Miiiiii"iiiuiiiiii!iiHiniiiiiiiuiiiiimiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiMiiMiiihiiiiiiiiniiiiii

J ■ — • roads would be blocked and, m some cases, blotted out by landslides, and there came to her the fear that maybe her husband had perished along with many others. "I knew my husband would come out for us if he could, though," she told "Truth's" representative.

"That night Jack, the brother of Marjories school teacher, came over to stay with us. In the morning he took us. over to the Peacocks, who are neighbors of ours, but by the time we arrived there we discovered the Maruia river had been blocked by the falling hills; threatening the Peacock's farm. "We saw it was too dangerous to stay there? so Aye all collected some food and blankets, put them m a dray, and started out on our way homeward. "The bridge was broken, but the boys managed to patch it up and .we just got over, and that was about all.

"When we arrived at the school we left the dray m the playground, and just then a boy named Jack Gibson came running along to tell us that the water, was trickling through the dam made by the landslide, threatening the whole valley. "Jack had run nearly three miles to warn us. We left hurriedly, got back to our own house, collected a. few things together, and 'managed to light a fire so that we could make a cup, of tea before we left. "Just as the kettle boiled my husband and his brother walked into the kitchen . ..." miiiimuummuiiinniMiimiimimiiiiiimimiiiiiiiiimuisiiiiniiiijiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

o — •; ■ ■;_ " — — — — — Think, of it! There was a woman, her own life and those of her two children threatened with the fury of a roaring torrent, her husband gone she knew not where, the cattle and sheep and- practically all the crops, destroyed, and all means of communication simply "and completely snapped. And m the midst of her anxiety and terror, her husband walked through the open doorway, m time for a cup of tea! ' Very soon other neighbors "came along the road and- collected at the O'Rourke, homestead, the available "men laden with blankets and food, the -womenfolk carrying the smaller children. When everything was complete, the party started out, numbering among them an extremely sick lady, Mrs. Alf. Rogers, who had been ill for some considerable time, and Miss Minnie Gibson, who, a. few. hours before, lost her mother and brother m a whelm of smothering earth and flying trees. O'Rourke and a neighbor named McWha carried the. children on their backs, already laden with as _ many blankets as they could carry, scrambling knee-deep across ■quake-shaken hills, walking painfully through a smother of branches, mud and rocks. Mrs. Rogers had not seen her husband for at least a month. He worked for a gold -dredging company that was prospecting m the Maruia Plains, nearly forty miles away from -where his wife lay sick at the time of the earthquakes, hence he was powerless to help her. She and her two sons left with the others, but they had jjone scarcely a mile when she collapsed, and had to be carried back to the nearest farmhouse, where she lay for some days m a critical state, until, a rescue party from Murchison set out and cradled her over the tortuous country which separated her from the town. j The O'Rourkes and their neighbors had very little food with them. They spent the night m the hills, shivering with the cold, suffering the pangs which torture the human body when healthy appetite remains only partially satisfied, their nerves a-twitch with apprehension that at any time they might be buried beneath the tonnage of some tumbling hill-top. Late next day they staggered along the main street of Murchison, where they were met, fed and given a change of clothing by those who remained ■ to conduct the rescue work. "We're absolutely ruined—haven't a penny m the; world— and there are a good many more like us," said Mrs. O'Rourke, during a conversation which | "Truth" had with her on the day. she and her husband arrived at Nelson. "These clothes — look at them — are all we have. Not a thing to our names. Just at a time when things seemed fairly bright,- too, and now. . . . I don't know whatever we'll do . . . and we're not the only ones. . . ." „ This, then, is the first stone along the rocky causeway of despair and desolation — desolation among the homes and the hills; despair m the, eyes of the women whose hours oflabor among the farmsteads are not numbered m the industrial awards; shrivelled hopes m the haggard faces of the men who have labored long years on their farms and claims, and have, seen the flowering'- shoots of successful labor cut away by v the terrible whini of the very Nature who succoured them. The trend of Nature is at all times slightly warped- with little strands of irony, inspiring hope where the fountainj had run dry, ,iinbuing • "optimism where optimism was not, nurturing i~nd encouraging it, then sweeping away the half-grown fledgling of seeming better luck ere.it had time to mature. It was only • a week ago that the bright hues of a rainbow slit the lowlying clouds around Nelson. Country people often are superstitious folk, and "Truth" heard a number of them decide that the sign m the heavens was- a pleasant augury for the future. ... ..Some of them talked about going back to their farms when the shakes subsided — some to build up their farms again, others to repair damage to homes and mining claims — because the sun was shining, and even though they were penniless something . . '. . SOMETHING good would come of it , all, and soon. ■ • ■ . ' That night they were greeted with news of another tragedy m the valleys from which they -had fled, and through the night were by earth disturbances which showed "clearly that Nature had not yet finished her terrible caprice. And m the morning, one man heard that the stock he hoped to rescue from starvation had since been buried beneath a tremendous fall of earth. . . But there were bright specks m their experience, nevertheless. ' The~ grin-cracked face, of Dave Mann as he doled out plates of stew, or carved off slices of meat, for hungry rescuers or the starving rescued; the cheerful, bustling - efficiency of Spiers, or Patterson, or Thorn, or Fraser, as 'they bundled weary people info lorries, and cars, bidding them "Cheer up, old man," or "You'll be jakerloo, Mrs. — !" And so these men helped these homeless! oft-times destitute people to . forget themselves and their misfortune.. There was a cracked, dishevelled, little shop just a short distance along 'the main street of Murchison, called "The Kozy Tea-rooms," and' it made the writer think of the many other "Kozies" he- had visited; in other parts of the country, -but m what different circumstances ! i .Curiously 'enough, the tables still stood upright,, covered with neat, yet plaster-and-dust-covered cloths, on which stood small sugar-bowls accompanied by bijou milkjugs containing a grey-mottled niess which once had „b een. milk. . .'...'•■•■•.

The shattered windows and debris which surrounded this little shop brought to mind the possible situation at the time when the town was lashed by the first big shake; whether morning tea was on at the time, and whether the people waited to finish. . .... Two picturesque old men, Alf and Tom Dellow, roamed the streets of Nelson. They, too, were refugees. Alf is 79 and invariably refers to his 67-years-old brother as "the boy." Fifty years ago they left trie Nelson district to try their luck as prospectors for gold m the upper Maruia South valley, where they stayed, year m and out, sluicing and shovelling for the bright nuggets .which the earth unwillingly yielded. . v Mrs. Ross, wife of the proprietor of the hotel which bears their name, said she had lived m Murchison for at least nine years, but had not seen the Dellows m town during the whole of that period. She recalled the pleasure which the local band gave old Alf. and Tom when their valley was visited by the musicians. "The Boy" and his "Father" had not heard a band for ■ about forty yeara, and they went nearly crazy with delight when they heard some of the old. familiar tunes. . "Play that again, will you?" they asked, and again the visitors played for the two excited diggers. Theirs was a memorable experience, too, m the violent upheaval which twisted the landscape around their two rough, simple shacks on the ledge of the Maruia. . - . ■■ Neither "The Boy" nor his "Father" could keep their feet when the earth commenced rolling and waving above the terrific forces which propelled it, and when thflir valley home was declared unsafe, they packed a little food and left. Alf. took his long, five-foot staff from the corner, while Tom retrieved his short, .wrinkly, .stick, that is fashioned very niuch after Harry Lauder's. Thus equipped, the two made their way over the stricken paddocks, getting a lift occasionally, but padding along, sore-footed and nearly exhausted, along tracks where 'neither car, dray nor push-bike could travel. The wheel has turned again, exhibiting once more the facet of , tragedy, showing to the world the agonies of a family who had a- happy-faced young stripling torn from its midst, and at

the same instant found the word RUIN splashed across the ledger which, of late years, had marked each success that came to them. Eighteen years ago Joseph Westbrook left Master ton to' take up a comparatively large holding of land m the Glengarry valley, which is an offshoot of the Maruia. Eighteen days ago his farmlands, his pigs and sheep and cattle were yielding him a pleasurable degree, of profit — profit which had cost him and His good wife the very essence of endeavor and thrift. To-day, practically everything is gone beneath the spume from, the

belching hills, while.. in the minds -of those who. remain Is seared' the awful recollection of how they watched young L.co disappear beneath a flying \hillside. . .■■:'.' Eva Westbrook and her mother were washing up at the time of the first upheaval, while the father was stumping on the other side of the valley. The roar of subteiTanean. discharges, of hidden forces spending themselves m the propulsion of thousands of tons of earth, ' the racket of falling kitchenware, the lowing of frightened cattle, suddenly burst upon the ear-drums of the busy women, and a few seconds later, while they were drying their hands, the hams suspended from the

kitchen ceiling commenced falling allaround them. Terror-stricken, they fled out into the paddock adjoining the house, then, when they could stand on their feet, for the ground was heaving m a most ; alarming manner, they gazed anxiously m the direction of the far-away: pad.dpck where Joseph 'Westbrook. . was working." It seems that the Westbrook property " was divided by a.• road which lay parallel to the hill, and it was necessary for Westbrook to cross this road before he could reach the paddock " leading to his house.

In his bewilderment he^rushed across the road without his coat, : and it. was not until he joined his wife, their daughter EvaVand son Leo,, that he remembered leaving his coat near the- spot where he had been stumping. Leo. said he would recover the coat for his father, and leaving the others he ran down the paddock, climbed the fence, crossed the road and went over towards the coat. . He had barely covered ten yards on his return journey when the hill at the back of him seemed to leap from its , foundations, and with a tremendous, | crashing roar a mile-long cyclone of . > \ earth .whirled.,- across the valley. Leo. must have been- only a few yards inside from the end of this widesweeping wall, since his sister, Eva, screamed out a warning for him to run for, his life, but before the. boy had taken more than a dozen paces his body was caught up m the flying cloud, \ thrown violently to the' ground, and: m ■ a •second was covered .with hundreds of tons of earth and rubble.". - Eva, her mother and father then ran at right angles to the swiftly-advanc-ing column,, barely escaping,' from the tremendous column of debris which threatened at any moment' to overtake them., '''".'• !..'-._■ They hurried to the 1 house where : lived their nearest neighbor' — two and a-half miles distant— and that night were obliged to share" a tiny , hut. with 24 other people who had \ similarly :been driven from their homes. •-•'-■"; : . . , Next morning they started; on the ;; first pf; the seventeen miles ■ "to-; Murchison,' a- distance which,; seemed a3" remote, to them as : the South;- 5 . P01e. -.; Even then, : the hills were moving, but , the womenfolk; did no'f observe the movevnent, nqr dfd the men enlighten them, since they were nearly , all hysterical with shock and well-nigh col- ' lapsed with the strain of; .lifting, their weary feet from the; bogs through.---5 which they had tq.pass. C-:- •/ Bert Spiers and a young telegraphic^ operator' named/ $t^n('Moreland,^ front the Murchison Post Office, had.ait exr vhausting experience oh "the; Mondays .. About- an, hbiir 1 after. the tfig^'qiiakeV when tents had been Mset :up 'm the school , -grounds, .and /preliminary ar^ , rangements made, for future transport^; Spiers and; Mofeland- T started out with'} a .breakdown- teleplione outfit; scramb-i ling, up" telegraph poles, cutting into circuits which once had. been .singing with messages along their wires, slid- ■- ing down again „>hen'' they, discovered' the wires were dead. :.

Plodding across huge slips which barred their way, borrowing cycles to help them along, commandeering motor-cars from friends who realised the need for swift action, shinning up more telegraph poles, cutting m again, walking across broken, shake-swept paddocks and roads.

MINE hours later they reached Glenhope, delivered their messages, then started out on the return journey riding and walking, fighting against the gnawing fatigue which fast grip-ped-their limbs, and at one o'clock m the morning they walked into the tent camp, glad to partake of the food that was offering. Scarcely anyone slept that night. Children cried m terror, distraught women alternately wept and screamed, men sat dazedly before the roaring: fires they occasionally stoked from timber collected m nearby yards. All were glad when the first faint streaks of morning showed themselves on the peaks of the fringing- hills. Spiers's three boys — Monty, Bert and Bill— did wonderful work as_ transport drivers. Typical chips off the block. A turn of the wheel, and again we face pleasanter things and happy people. Companionable folk, whose presence infused a brighter glow into a tragic atmosphere — men like T..ee M. Hill, a cine-cameraman, whom "Truth" met on the way alonpr the desolate road between Glenavy. and Murchison. • Hill "scooped" every other cameraman m the country, yet. while intent on his mission of giving the remainder of New Zealand some vivid, first-hand .imiiimmimniiimuiiiiiniiiiiuiimniiiuiiiiiuiiiiunimimmimiuimniiuumu

impressions of a district laid waste by the frenzied forces underground, he found time for simple kindnesses. More than one youngster bereft ,of a home was grateful for the small slabs of chocolate he munched on the way to Nelson — tokens of thoughtfulness passed over by the man at the movie crank handle. He and "Truth's" representative were jogging along the road m the Longford area when they cume upon a. small out-back house, situated about fifty yards from the front fence. Just as they were about to pass the front gate, a short, stocky woman emerged through the doorway of the house, followed by two small boys and an elderly lady. All of them carried parcels and bags. Each looked unutterably weary. The faces of the two boys, particularly, bore the unmistakable signs of a per- j iod without food, of exposure, of days of torment on the earthy billows sent up by the tremendous forces which groaned and roared miles beneath their feet. While the newspaperman stored m his memory the story told by Mrs. Gibbs and her two young sons, the cameraman recorded it on his long roll of film, recorded the expressions of the woman as she told her tale; "caught" them as they came out of the house, as they were waiting for the rosiuiing lorry whose driver had promised to pick them up on his way to. Nelson, i

Tne Gibbs family represented m the picture reproduced m this story lives m an isolated part of the country m a little area known as Blackwater, nine miles from Murchison. Not a soul for miles around lived near them, and for some time Mrs. Gibbs has lived there on her small holding, milking a cow and struggling on as best she could. When the great shake came the banks and hills commenced falling all round the small Gibbs house. The two back rooms, kitchen and bedroom were smashed to atoms, the kitchen stove was flung to the four winds and the top of the chimney was flung completely away from its foundations. "The children were frightened to death, and I was m agony wondering what was going to happen to us all, for there is no man about the place, and I didn't know how ever we should get out," exclaimed Mrs. Gibbs, excitedly. "Here T am, without a penny to replace all that is gone — all my savings — everything for which T have worked and slaved all these months and years. » They packed a few things they would need — blankets and a little miuiiimiiiuiiiiumiimmuiiimiutiiiiniimimiiiiiiiiiiii mini imiimumi

food — and then commenced to tramp across the broken wastes that once had been verdant hills. Four nights they endured the~-ex-posure to bitter winds and streaming rain; sleeping on blankets, and covered by a strip of American cloth they retrieved from the wreckage which they once had called a kitchen. Trees and rocks came down m a veritable fusillade, and it was a miracle that they ever survived. As Mrs. Gibbs herself remarked: "We simply got out by the help of Heaven. . . ." These, then, are the cameos which go toward the fashioning of a hall of tragedy; pictures m a terrible vista which for a. number of years shall be described as one of the worst, most pathetic episodes New Zealand has experienced up to the present day. The haunting memory of those wan, Nature-shaken faces; of the haggard men and nervous, fearstricken women who wandered aimlessly around Nelson, seeking and finding they knew not what, lies like a stab m the heart — > sharply, brutally cut. Mayhap, that very rainbow which, flaunted m the heavens, shall later be a true sign from the Beyond; that the wasted valleys of the Murchison shall ring again with prosperity, and the fearsome experiences of yesterday shall be the ■ forerunner of pleasant i success, to-morrow.