“In the face of such a gallant spirit and purpose, difficulties and discouragements which at first were appalling will disappear. In its heroic work its strength and hope will be all the greater for the friendly aid and encouragement and the munificent generosity of America and Europe which will help Galveston to get upon its feet again.” CHAPTER XVI. Startling Havoc Made by the Angry Storm—Vessels Far Out on the Prairie—Urgent Call for Millions of Dollars—Tangled Wires and Mountains of Wreckage. Colonel “Bill” Sterrett, a well-known publisher of Austin, went to Galveston after the storm and the sights he saw during his stay there are thus described by him: “How to commence the story bothers. Whether to start out with the absolute truth and wind the sheet about the whole thing with the simple expression ‘unspeakable’ or to go on and hint the details inexpressibly sad, intimate the horrors, is the question. “It would be better for the heart if a veil could fall from heaven and conceal what it has done. It would be better if a fog, thick, like a wall, should come up between the sea and the land that the latter might never see the crime of the former. For if calm humanity shrieked against the awfulness of the one element, it has done it now. “The broad pampa between Houston and Galveston had been flooded. The towns which in the last ten years had grown were scared and torn by this fiend. Its anger was shown in pastures as well as in towns, and yet none knew the fury of it. There were reports of destruction further on, and the truth of them impressed each man in the cars as the cars counted off its rattleteteck in toll-off the miles. “Against a barbed wire fence the bloated carcasses of cattle had floated, their swollen limbs stiff toward the sky, and yet others browsed around in the meadow now which was a roaring sea but four days ago. The sight was the first he saw of death, and every man in the car, as to avoid the fear that arose in the mind of each, began to express wonder how this could be, that is, that some of these poor brutes were dead and others living. There were vessels of all tonnage, kinds and degrees on the prairie. “Out there was a tramp steamship, the other way was the dredge boat; there were yachts, schooners and launches, but near us was the hobby horse of a child. And so help me, I would rather have seen all the vessels of the earth stranded high and dry than to have seen this child’s toy, standing right out on that prairie, masterless. Because one represented—well, why, say God, man’s heart is so weak. But surely he will forgive it when it is soft for those who are weak.