On Board Taiyo Maru after Big Earthquake Hit the Jap Coast:
Reynolds-Winters Party Sees Some of the Horrible Effects
Mrs. C. N. Hunt yesterday received a letter from her daughter, Mrs. W. D. Reynolds, who with her husband and small daughter, Helen Elizabeth and Mr. and Mrs. Cleal C. Winters of this city, are touring the Orient, descriptive of the scenes immediately after the great Japanese earthquake.
The Reynolds-Winters party were on the Japanese steamer Taiyo Maru, just out of Yokohama when the quake struck. The ship was badly damaged, and sending out the "S. O. S." signal, but this the passengers evidently did not know. They did hear however, that the report had gone out that the ship had sunk.
Part of Mrs. Reynolds letter was written on board the Taiyo Maru and part from the Miyako Hotel, in the mountains just about Kyoto, Japan.
The letter, in part, is as follows:
Saturday, Sept. 8th. We have not sent a wire as after the first wire telling about this terrible earthquake, the wires could not be used except for relief and orders. Just one week ago today the wire came to the ship and as this is a Japanese vessel all festivities ceased and the air has been tense ever since. Every hour new messages would come, each one worse than the last.
We arrived twelve miles out of Yokohama harbor Thursday and we were signaled not to come in, being the first large boat to arrive. The ship went forward a mile all night and then the current would carry it back and the crew kept sounding, and as they did not know the effect of the earthquake below of course we did not sleep, but it was even more terrible next morning, when we went into the harbor -we were only a mile from shore. Only small boats could dock as the piers were burned.
Three men came aboard and one and all went to the dining saloon to hear the report. One was a Japanese official in the steam-ship company. The others were Americans, very fine men. They first told us that Yokohama, a city of three hundred thousand was entirely destroyed. There is not one building left-there is nothing but ruins, fifty thousand people were killed and more than that in Tokyo. The fire swept Yokohama and Tokyo. Those who were not injured or killed were burned. Two million people are homeless and there is little food.
The Koreans are dynamiting and killing many Japanese. One American said he was rich before but his family is now dead and he has only his clothes. The American consul and his wife were killed and every foreigner in the hotels. One of the most popular ladies on board, Mrs. Ensign, asked one of the men who came on aboard about her husband whom she was to meet in Yokohama. He had just come over a week ago. She is from Fresno and decided hastily to make the trip. He said, "I was one of the few whom Mr. Ensign knew. He dined with my family and self Friday night. I have not seen him since."
It is terrible to even think of. Our crew with the exception of a few Chinese have gone ashore to see if there is not a trace of their families and are given until tomorrow to return. Some have come back without even getting into Yokohama as the docks are crowded with refugees fighting to get on the boats.
Sunday September 8th. The Argentine boys have just been taking moving pictures of us. Helen is asleep and feels fine as do all of us. We have had plenty of food but only a small bottle of water in our rooms for bathing and only warm water to drink but ice water at meal times. No towels or clean linen and no cabin service but we do not suffer. Will be glad when we pull out of this terrible harbor. It is nothing to look out of our porthole and see a dead body float by. Yesterday morning I was up at 6 o'clock watching the refugees come onto the boat. We now have about five hundred scattered all over the boat, in deck chairs and along the halls. They are the most pitiful sight imaginable. Most of them have been without food for a week and many had to crawl up the steps. Mothers with babies strapped to their backs and some of them naked, many horribly burned and ill. Unfortunately the doctor's cabin is just across from ours and at present it is filled with the sick. One baby of five is badly burned and cries incessantly.
Our cabin boy came back this morning. He speaks English very well. He said "I have brought back my wife but our baby a year and a half old was killed when our home fell."
Twelve of the men on the boat including Mr. Farley from Tulsa and two of the Argentine family went ashore yesterday. They were told that they might not get back. We were glad to see them return in a refugee boat. They said the dead were piled hundreds deep and there was nothing to see but ruins. Never again will I travel on a foreign ship. We are under control of the Japanese government. The "President Wilson" did not come into harbor and was due yesterday. She went to Kobe, 24 hours from here. All that we are now promised is "That we will be taken to Kobe to start some time today" as most of the crew have returned. There had been several small quakes since we came into port and we can feel them on the boat. The harbor is guarded by Japanese, English, and thank goodness, two American battleships.
One of the Americans who came on board to talk to us is in the hospital very ill. All his family were killed and he has been doing relief work. Our table boy came back and said, "All my family is finished." The Japanese are very stoical about their dead and the refugees very quiet. They are too tired to be otherwise and nearly faint when they try to get on the ladder to come up on the boat. At night the harbor is beautiful if it was not so gruesome.
They are burning bodies on shore and most of the ships throwing searchlights and sending wireless.
It is exceedingly warm and almost unbearable, and often the odor is frightful. Our best friends are the Tulsa people and the family from Argentine. We manage to amuse ourselves. The Firpos — Argentine family, spent four months in Europe and then a three months tour in the United States. They were guests of President Harding as the grandfather is governor of Argentine. They speak French, German, Italian and Spanish and have an English tutor with them and an English governess for the daughter. The father and mother are charming. The young Argentine boy who came to be attaché to the Argentine consul in Tokyo was informed that the Argentine consul and his wife were safe in Kobe, but he does not know just how to find them. He is only twenty two and I pity him as he does not speak English or Japanese.
I dislike going outside my cabin but it is far too hot to stay below all the time. Please don't publish any of the letters as they are hastily written and it would be impossible for me to give a description of this terrible disaster.
September 10th. We left the harbor of Yokohama at 6 o'clock and never was I so glad to leave a place. We had two thousand refugees on board. They were all over the ship, in the halls, smoking rooms, salons and deck chairs. It seems strange that we cannot have at least one room as they are so horribly dirty and ill, but we are told that many are the best families of Tokyo and Yokohama and if we had been in those cities before the earthquake we would have been proud to have gone to their homes. Many were carried on board with broken limbs that have not been set and it has been more than a week since the quake. They all sleep most of the time and any place available. Last night we walked along the deck and it made me heart sick, so many children, some without father or mother-and young boys nicely dressed from the cadet school in Tokyo in uniforms. This morning we arrived in the harbor of Shimitzo, a beautiful place. All day the boats have been taking off refugees, each with a slice of bread and an orange. They do not know where they are going or what may happen next.
We may go to Kobe tonight and are due to arrive tomorrow night. We are told there is not a room to be had in Kobe so we will probably remain on the boat, which may return to Yokohama with supplies. We will do everything possible to find rooms in Kobe as anything would be better than going back to Yokohama and the doctor tells me there are many diseases among the refugees, and it will be even worse the next load.
The people on Taiyo Maru have contributed generously to the relief work and in the morning we have been sewing, making kimonos out of any material in possession of the passenger. One American boy came on board yesterday. His father was worth two million dollars. Now his father is dead and he has no money. He is very ill and one of the passenger has taken him into his cabin.
Tuesday, Sept. 11. At last we are in a hotel. A Japanese hotel up in the mountains of Kyoto. This is a beautiful place. The manager speaks English as do most of the service boys. The Taiyo Maru reached Kobe yesterday morning. The heat was intense at the dock and we had to stay in our rooms to keep cool. The men hurried ashore to get rooms. The Oriental Hotel was filled by they phoned to Kyoto and found rooms there. They came back to the boat and we hastily packed our trunks and after making reservations on the Taiyo Maru we took rickishas (sic) and went to the Oriental Hotel. It is a lot of fun to ride in a rickisha. Helen rode in one with Mr. Farley's little boy and this morning is teasing to "go auto riding in the funny buggy."
We had tea at the Oriental Hotel, which is far more beautiful than the Muelbach in Kansas City, and twice as large. Then as dinner would not be served until 7:30 we again took ricishas and went to a tea house-a most beautiful place. It was fun to see Cleal's man try to pull him up the hill. Cleal got out and made the man get in. At the tea house door we were obliged to remove our shoes. We sat on the floor around a table then to our disappointment they brought in incense. Then they placed jars of charcoal in holes in the table, brought in raw chicken and vegetables and began to cook them. We were starved and could not eat the food. We gave the children rice. We then went to the station. It was twilight and the city was beautiful. It took us two hours to reach Kyoto.
The view from my window is delightful as we are on a hill overlooking the city. This is the old capital of Japan and a manufacturing city. The best place to shop in Japan. I am wild about Japan, what I have seen here but of course our first impression was terrible. There seems to be no sign of the earthquake here.
Must tell you about the young Argentine attache. He found the consul at the Oriental Hotel but he refused to accept him and said he had all he could do to care of himself. The young man wired his father but it will take six days for the message to go and six to receive an answer and he has little money, but he doesn't know what his government would have him do.
We are all well and hope we will have no trouble. There is so much to see and do you will probably not hear again until we cable we are taking the boat home.