286 RECENT EARTHQUAKE WAVE ON COAST OF JAPAN 
the trunk railway line of the island, and this picturesque, fiord- 
cut coast is so remote and so isolated that only two foreigners 
had been seen in the region in ten years, with the exception of 
the French mission priest, Father Raspail, who lost his life in 
the flood. With telegraph offices, instruments, and operators 
carried away, word came slowly to Tokjm, and with 50 to 100 
miles of mountain roads between the nearest railwa}' station and 
the seacoast aid was long in reaching the wretched survivors. 
When adequate idea of the calamity reached the capital and the 
cities, men-of-war, soldiers, sappers, surgeons, and nurses were 
quickly dispatched, and public s^uupathy found expression in 
contributions through the different newspapers, amounting to 
more than 250,000 yen, for the relief of the injured. The Japanese 
journalist and photographer were quickly on their way, and the 
vernacular press soon fed the public full of horrors, }'et the first 
to reach the scene of the disaster was an American missionary, 
the Rev. Rothesay Miller, who made the usual three days’ trip 
over the mountains in less than a day and a half on his Ameri- 
can bicycle. 
There were old traditions of such earthquake waves on this 
coast, one of two centuries ago doing some damage, and a tsunami 
of fort}’^ years ago and a lesser one of 1892 flooding the streets of 
Kamaishi and driving })eople to upper floors and the roofs of 
their houses. The barometer gave no warning, no indication 
of any unusual conditions on June 15, and the occurrence of 
thirteen light earthquake shocks during the day excited no com- 
ment. Rain had fallen in the morning and afternoon, and with 
a temperature of 80® to 90° the damp atmosphere was very op- 
pressive. The villagers on that remote coast adhered to the old 
calendar in observing their local fetes and holidays, and on that 
fifth day of the fifth moon had been celebrating the Girls’ Festival. 
Rain had driven them indoors with the darkness, and nearly 
all were in their houses at eight o'clock, when, with a rumbling 
as of heavy cannonading out at sea, a roar, and the crash and 
crackling of timbers, they were suddenl}'^ engulfed in the swirl- 
ing waters. Only a few survivors on all that length of coast saw 
the advancing wave, one of them telling that the water first re- 
ceded some 600 yards from ghastly white sands and then the 
Wave stood like a black wall 80 feet in height, with phosphor- 
escent lights gleaming along its crest. Others, hearing a distant 
roar, saw a dark shadow seaward and ran to high ground, cry- 
ing “Tkunaiju tsunami!^' Some who ran to the upper stories 
