“The whole country was under water, but we decided to get to Galveston any way that night. We pulled out towards Virginia Point, wading in water up to our necks, some times swimming. At one place it got so deep that we got a lot of drift together and constructed a sort of a raft and ferried over the places. I was about to forget to tell you that one of our party was a woman, a Miss Beach. She had a sick sister in Galveston at the infirmary and she had determined to get to her if possible. That brave and fearless women kept up with the men wading and swimming, and while others lagged and some dropped out along the way, she never once faltered, and I have never before seen her equal for courage and determination. “There were six of us when we got to Virginia Point, others had turned out toward Texas City. We got as near to Virginia Point as we could, we found three railroad engines there, one of them turned over. There were some cars scattered along the track and in one caboose were some injured people. A portion of our party stopped there to do what they could for them. “We found dead bodies all along the track, three and four in a bunch, all women and children with perhaps the single exception of one man. These bodies were strewn from the Point to Texas City and they were there by the hundreds, it seemed to me—bodies of people who had been washed and blown across the bay from Galveston. Some of the people who had made that terrible trip across the bay, driven by the force of the wind and the waves, were yet alive. “There were all sorts of debris and wreckage piled up and washing along the mainland; furniture of every description, heavy iron, frames of pianos, fine plush-covered furniture—everything was there to be seen. The remains of cattle and horses and chickens were there in heaps and piles, drifting boxcars had been driven three miles from their original positions and turned over and blown about. GATHERING UP THE DEAD. “Monday, as soon as it was light enough to see, we started out looking for skiffs—something to take us to Galveston. We did not find a skiff, all had been stove in. At last we found a negro who had a boat. He had been crippled. Three of us, Miss Beach among the number, took passage on his boat, and I took charge of it. The remainder of our party stayed at Virginia Point until the arrival of a sailboat and brought a relief party to Galveston from Houston. A relief train had arrived, from Houston, bringing members of the fire department, the health officer and county officers, with provisions. They saw that there was no way for them to cross and so they remained and began the work of gathering and bringing the dead on the mainland.