Every member of the police force, twenty-five in number, was killed, together with nine prisoners under guard.
But it is impossible to give an adequate description of that night of horror in Cua by enumerating individual instances of suffering. Those that I have given are merely a few out of hundreds of others equally distressing.
The survivors encamped upon the banks of the river Tuy, where they might well repeat those tender lines of the Psalmist: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." Even the discomfort of the heavy rains which set in could make no impression upon hearts bowed down and crushed by the terrible calamity which had swept away their all--home, friends, everything that makes life worth having--at one quick blow. Not a house was left standing in their beautiful city: even the outlines of the streets were no longer visible: it was with the greatest difficulty that any particular building or locality could be recognized.
Tents of various materials were improvised upon the river-side, sheltering without regard to age, sex or social condition the wounded, and even the dead. Many were in a state of delirium, some in the agonies of death, hundreds weeping for their lost friends and relatives, and many unable to recognize the recovered bodies on account of their having been burned beyond recognition by the fire caused by the upsetting of petroleum lamps. For the first two days the bodies were buried in the usual manner, but on the third decomposition had set in to such an extent that it was found necessary to burn them. An eye-witness exclaims: "Of all that I have seen in what was the rich, the beautiful, the flourishing city of Cua, now a cemetery, nothing has made so profoundly melancholy an impression upon me as the cremation of the bodies of the unfortunate victims of the late disaster, tied together with ropes and dragged forth from the ruins, one over another, the stiffened limbs taking strange, unnatural attitudes, and upon being touched by the flames consuming instantly, on account of their advanced decomposition." The body of a little child was thrown upon this funeral pile, when suddenly the eyes opened, and the voice cried out, "_Pan! pan!_" ("Bread! bread!") Imagine the feelings of the spectators at beholding how nearly the little creature had been immolated!