Driftwood 5


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page 52  “The scene at this moment forbids description. Men, women, and children were seen running in every direction.” … West of the hotel, in the middle of a large downstairs living room, the Reverend Robert McAllister squeezed himself into a circle of frightened friends. Twelve terrified inhabitants watched as the roof and walls of the house were torn away plank by plank. Within the hour, they sat exposed in the middle of a bare floor. Every wall had been blown down. — Bill Dixon, Last Days of Last Island The most recent book by Bill Dixon, published in 2009, is historically far more accurate than the previous ones, published in 1980 and in 1889. Actually the first book Chita: A Memory of Last Island, written in exotic style by Lafcadio Hearn, was more a novel than a historical account, but Dixon himself mentions its artistic value, as he knew how fascinating the story was: I was, by then, inexorably addicted to this fascinating tale and determined more than ever to make sense of the story. Despite the credible work done by Sothern, the overriding force of Lafcadio Hearn's pen and the passage of time had left the story shrouded in myth and mystery. — Bill Dixon, Last Days of Last Island Of course, Hearn's book too is able to strike terror, if the reader enters into it: And the tumultuous ocean terrified her more and more: it filled her sleep with enormous nightmare; — it came upon her in dreams, mountain-shadowing … Never had he given them so terrible a wrestle as on the night of the tenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. All the waves of the excited Gulf thronged in as if to see, and lifted up their voices, and pushed, and roared, until the cheniere was islanded by such a billowing as no white man's eyes had ever looked upon before. — Lafcadio Hearn, Chita: A Memory of Last Island  sources →  Dixon, Bill. Last Days of Last Island: The Hurricane of 1856, Louisiana's First Great Storm. Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana, 2009. 8, 92, 114. Print. http://books.google.com/books?id=XIVqgqn_WpgC&pg=PT92 [&pg=PT114] [&pg=PT8] Hearn, Lafcadio. Chita: A Memory of Last Island. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889. 69, 157. Print. http://www.archive.org/stream/chitamemoryoflas00hearuoft#page/156/mode/2up [#page/68/mode/2up]