Sicily In Shadow and In Sun

Sicily, the “Four Corners” of that little ancient world that was bounded on the west by the Pillars of Hercules, is to southern Europe what Britain is to northern Europe, Chief of Isles, universal Cross-roads. Sicily lies nearer both to Africa and to Europe than any other Mediterranean island, and is the true connecting link between East and West. Battle-ground of contending races and creeds, it has been soaked over and over again in the blood of the strong men who fought each other for its possession. There has never been a Sicilian nation. Perhaps that is the reason the story of the island is so hard to follow, it’s all snarled up with the history of first one, then another nation. The most obvious way of learning something about Sicily is to read what historians have to say about it; a pleasanter way is to listen to what the poets from Homer to Goethe have sung of it, paying special heed to Theocritus—he knew Sicily better than anybody else before his time or since! Then there’s the geologist’s story—you can’t spare that; it’s the key to all the rest. The best way of all is to go to Sicily, and there fit together what little bits of knowledge you have or can lay your hands upon,—scraps of history, poetry, geology. You will be surprised how well the different parts of the picture-puzzle, now knocking about loose in your mind, will fit together, and what a good picture, once put together, they will give you of Sicily.

When a child in the nursery, you learned the story of the earliest time! How Kronos threw down his scythe, and it sank into the earth and made the harbor of Messina. (The geologists hint that the wonderful round, land-locked harbor is the crater of a sunken volcano, but you and I cling to the legend of Kronos.) In that golden age of childhood, you learned the story of the burning mountain, Etna, and went wandering through the purple fields of Sicily with Demeter, seeking her lost daughter, Persephone. You raced with Ulysses and his men from the angry Cyclops down to that lovely shore, put out to sea with them, and felt the boat whirled from its course and twisted like a leaf in the whirlpool current of Charybdis. When you left the nursery for the schoolroom, you learned the names of the succeeding nations that have ruled Sicily, every one of whom has left some enduring trace of their presence. As you cross from the mainland of Italy to this Sicily, you can, if you will use your memory and imagination, see in fancy the hosts who have crossed before you, eager, as you are, to make this jewel of the south their own.

First of all, look for the Sicans; some say they are of the same pre-Aryan race as the Basques. After the Sicans come the Sikels. They are Latins, people we feel quite at home with; their coming marks the time when the age of fable ends and history begins. Next come the Phoenicians, the great traders of the world, bringing the rich gift of commerce. They set up their trading stations near the coasts, as they did in Spain, and bartered with the natives—a peaceful people—as they bartered with the Iberians of the Peninsula. The real fighting began when the Greeks came, bringing their great gift of Art. Sicily now became part of Magna Graecia, and rose to its apogee of power and glory. Syracuse was the chief of the Greek cities of Sicily. The Greek rulers were called Tyrants. They were great rulers indeed; the greatest of them, Dionysius, ruled 406 B.C. Then came the heavy-handed Romans and the first glory of Sicily was at end. The Romans made a granary of Sicily and carried off its treasures to adorn imperial Rome. They stayed a long time, but with the crumbling of the Roman Empire there came a change in Sicily, the first Roman province, and for a time the Goths and the Byzantines ruled her. Then came the Saracens. They destroyed Syracuse and made a new capital, Palermo, that from their time to ours has remained the chief city of the island. After the Saracens came the Normans—the same generation of men that subdued England under William the Conqueror,—and gave to Sicily a second period of greatness; for if the Greeks gave Sicily her Golden Age, the Norman age at least was Silver Gilt. The French came too, but their stay was short, their reign inglorious; it is chiefly remembered on account of the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, when the Sicilians rose, drove out their conquerors, and drenched the land in French blood. In the early part of the fifteenth century, Spain, who was beginning her age of conquest, conquered Sicily and held it subject for more than four hundred years. Finally, in the year 1860, came Garibaldi, and reunited Sicily to Italy.

Geologically, Sicily has been as restless as it has been politically and socially. At least twice it was connected with Italy, and once probably with Africa, so that African animals entered it. The Straits of Messina, only two miles wide, and one hundred and fifty fathoms deep, are Nature’s record of an earthquake rupture between Italy and Sicily. Mount Etna, the most impressive thing in the island, has been there since early tertiary times—before the days of the ice-age, when the mammoth and cave-bear roamed through the woods of Europe. It is probably a younger mountain than Vesuvius, but long before the dawn of history Sicily and Calabria were the prey of the earthquake and the volcano. The Straits of Messina and Mount Etna are both the results of earthquake activity. The Straits are a gigantic crevice in the earth; the volcano is only a tear in the earth’s crust, so deep that the hot steam of the interior of the earth rises from the ever open rupture. Etna, therefore, is not the cause of earthquake, but is itself the child of an earthquake. It sprang, a full-grown mountain, from the breast of earth, as Pallas from the brain of Zeus. Etna was probably far larger once than it is now. The present cone rests on a volcanic plateau, that appears to have been the base of a larger cone, which was blown to atoms. The old mountain is full of cracks which are filled with hard basalt that cements it together. Its explosive tendency causes it to give rise to a great many little cones upon the sides, called parasitic cones, which burst forth suddenly almost anywhere.

Historian, poet, geologist, each tells his story, but the poet tells it best of all. There is no better description of Sicily and its people than the one you will find in the Odyssey.

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	Messina Destroyed	1
II.	The Straits of Death	39
III.	America to the Rescue	77
IV.	The Cruise of the “Bayern”	116
V.	Royal Visitors	161
VI.	At Palazzo Margherita	191
VII.	Building the New Messina	217
VIII.	The Camp by Torrente Zaera	248
IX.	Guests at Camp	269
X.	The Villaggio Regina Elena	293
XI.	Taormina	312
XII.	Syracuse	344
XIII.	Palermo	377
XIV.	Mr. Roosevelt at Messina	427
XV.	Easter	446
XVI.	Messina (Ave atque Vale!)	466

From Drawings by John Elliott
The Tell Tale Tower	Frontispiece
	Facing Page
Ruins of the American Consulate, Messina	20
Messina. The Torrente Zaera	244
Reggio. Queen Elena’s Group of American Cottages	248
Hotel Regina Elena and Church of Santa Croce, American Village, Messina	282
Messina. American Cottages, Villaggio Regina Elena	304
Viale Griscom, American Village, Messina	436
A Makeshift Church and Belfry	448
Pay-Window and the Archbishop’s Bell	454
Scylla	468
Via Belknap, American Village, Messina	472
Elizabeth Griscom Hospital, Villaggio Regina Elena	476
Illustrations from Photographs
Messina in Flames	10
The Municipio in Flames, Messina	10
Rescue Party of Russian Sailors	11
The Palazzata, Messina	11
The Water Front, Messina	40
A Funeral Barge	41
The King and the Wounded Officer	41
The Barracks, Messina	44
Ruins of a Church, Messina	44
Digging for the Buried-Alive	45
The King at Messina	45
Messina. The Cathedral Before the Disaster	50
The Cathedral, After the Disaster	50
Arcangelo’s House	51
Messina. Where Marietta Lived	51
Stromboli from the “Bayern”	114
The American Ambassador and Red Cross Nurses on the “Bayern”	114
Italian Military Encampment, Messina	115
Italian Officers and Men, Messina	115
Messina. A House that Escaped Destruction	130
Soldiers on their Way to a Rescue	130
The Military College, Messina	131
Palace of the Prefect, Messina	131
Tenente di Vascello Alfredo Brofferio	222
Lieutenant Commander Reginald Rowan Belknap, U. S. N.	222
Wreck of Railroad, Reggio	223
Street in Reggio	223
Grand Hotel Regina Elena, American Village, Messina	226
Arrival of the “Eva”	227
Frame of First House, American Village, Messina	227
Lieutenant Commander Belknap putting the American Camp in Commission	240
Hauling up the Colors, American Village, Messina	240
Messina. Via I. Settembre	241
The Cathedral, Palmi	241
Messina. Arrival of Furniture for American Cottages	252
American Village, Messina. Via Bicknell, First Street	252
Stragglers from the Herd, American Camp, Messina	253
In the American Village, Messina	253
Avvocato Donati	258
Mr. Buchanan’s Boy and His Mates	258
Quitting Work	259
Arrival of the Barber	259
Workshop of American Village, Reggio	266
First American House in Reggio	266
American Shelters, Palmi	267
Reggio. Carpenters at Work	267
Olive Grove near Palmi	276
Captain Belknap and Carpenter Faust	277
View from the Hotel, American Village, Messina	277
American Village, Messina. The Pay Line	286
“The Front of the palace had fallen into a heap of ruins”	287
Church of Our Lady of the Poor, Seminara	287
Zia Maddalena and Her Family	308
Captain Bignami and His Staff	308
Gasparone and Water Boys in Hotel Courtyard, Messina	309
Road-making in the American Village, Messina	309
American Quarter, Messina	312
An Eruption of Mt. Etna	313
The Road to Taormina	313
Mt. Etna from Taormina	324
Example of Sicilian Gothic Architecture, Taormina	324
Choir Stalls, San Domenico, Taormina	325
Friar Joseph’s Missal	325
Fort Euryelus, Syracuse	352
Example of Sicilian Gothic Architecture, Syracuse	352
Girgenti. A Wine Cart	353
Girgenti. A Sicilian Cart	353
Church of San Giovanni, Syracuse	360
Theatre, Palermo	360
Etruscan Sarcophagus, Palermo Museum	361
In the Museum, Palermo	361
Villa Tasca, Palermo	376
Villa d’Orleans, Palermo	376
Fountain of the Pretoria, Palermo	377
Church of San Giovanni, Palermo	377
Tower of the Martorana, Palermo	390
Water Carriers, Taormina	390
Church of the Martorana, Palermo	391
Palermo. Capella Palatina	391
Monreale	396
The Royal Palace, Palermo	397
The Cathedral, Palermo	397
Rear of the Cathedral, Monreale	400
The Cathedral, Monreale. Tombs of William I. and William II	400
Monte Pellegrino, Palermo	401
Façade of the Cathedral, Monreale	401
Interior of the Cathedral, Monreale	404
Monreale. The Cloisters	404
Bronze Door of the Cathedral, Monreale	405
The Arab Fountain, Monreale	405
Palermo. The Quattro Canti	432
Palermo. The Marina	432
American Village, Messina. The Celtic’s Carpenter Cook and two “Scorpions” measuring off the Land	433
Wing of the Elizabeth Griscom Hospital, Villaggio Regina Elena	433
The King, escorted by Buchanan, Brofferio and Elliott, visits American Village	440
Messina. Painting the American Cottages	440
Church of Santa Croce, American Village, Messina	441
Hotel in Construction, American Village, Messina	464
Enclosing Gang at Work	464
Grand Hotel Regina Elena from the Railroad	465
View from the Hotel, American Village, Messina	465
Grand Hotel Regina Elena and Church of Santa Croce	480
———
Map of Sicily	1

Monday evening, December 28th, 1908, four friends were dining together in a luxurious Roman villa. The hostess, Vera, sat opposite me at the head of her table with Lombardi, the Milanese mathematician on one side, and Athol, an Englishman, the representative of a great English newspaper, on the other. It was our first meeting that season. Vera, who had passed the summer at home in Russia, had just returned to Rome; I had arrived three days before on Christmas evening. We were all really glad to see one another, eager to hear the other’s news and to give our own. The dinner was a triumph! Attilio, the Neapolitan chef, had outdone himself; the pheasant in aspic was an inspiration, though the dish may have been prepared from a receipt known to the cook of Lucullus. Whatever decline other arts may show, the culinary art of Rome has lost nothing since the days of the famous banquets in the gardens of Sallust. Vera’s table was laid with the robin’s-egg Sevres service, the Copenhagen glass with its gilt borders, and the gold plate that had belonged to Cardinal Antonelli. In the middle stood an exquisitely wrought silver partridge, Vera’s own work, modelled and hammered out of silver by that strong small hand, the speaking hand of the artist, that now sparkled with jewels as she raised her glass of Orvieto and drank to our next meeting. After dinner we drew our chairs round the library fire where the tiny Roman Yule logs blazed cheerily on the hearth. It was extraordinarily cold for Rome; the thick fur of the great white polar bear skin before the fire was comforting to our chilled feet. Outside on the terrace a dog bayed.

“Open the door and let Romulus in,” said Vera. “It’s very wrong of course—a watch-dog ought to sleep in his little cold house—but I haven’t the heart to leave even a dog out on such a night.”

“It’s the coldest season we have ever known in Italy,” Lombardi remarked. We all shivered in the piercing gust that came from the open door as a shambling uncouth white puppy tumbled, capering with joy, into the room. He was a foundling from the campagna, lost, strayed or stolen from his sheep-dog kin, and adopted by Vera. His rough ugliness emphasized the refinement of the violet-scented villa where a crumpled roseleaf would have hurt.

As we drank our coffee, the dog nuzzling Vera’s satin slipper with little sounds of joy, a servant brought in the evening papers and handed them to Lombardi—I can see him now standing before the fire, unfolding the Tribuna and glancing at the headlines; I can smell the damp printer’s ink.

“Any news?” asked Vera.

“There has been an earthquake in Calabria.”

The Englishman nodded; he had heard it, he always heard the news before the rest of us!

“Another earthquake! Not a bad one?” I cried.

“The paper naturally makes the most of it, though it does not seem to have done much damage,” Athol reassured us.

“Poor people, how they have suffered!” Vera sighed comfortably. After a few more comments the subject was dropped and we began again to abuse the powers that be for the shocking breaches that have been made in the ancient walls of Rome. Bits of our talk come back to me now as from an immeasurable distance. It is as if that conversation over the fire in Vera’s library had taken place in another planet during another existence.

“The wall that Belisarius defended fifteen hundred years ago against the Goths without the gates has been demolished by the Goths within the gates!” exclaimed Athol.

“It’s a world’s crime,” I said, “because Rome belongs to the world; it’s just as much ours as the Italians’!”

“Ah! so you like to think!” said the only Italian present, indulgently.

“I have heard you say it yourself, Lombardi, when you wanted something of us outlanders,” Athol came to my rescue.

“Remember, the petition to have the streets put through was got up by an Englishman, who owned property near by that he thought would be improved,” Vera defended.

The talk drifted from one archæological matter to another. Athol told us of Boni’s last discoveries in the Forum, the tombs under Trajan’s column; the “finds” made by Goclaire, the Frenchman, on the Gianiculum; why the excavation at Herculaneum had been given up:—The peasant owners of the land, seeing so much said about it in the papers, believe their land covers priceless treasures, and will not allow a spade to be put into the earth until a vast sum of money is deposited beforehand to indemnify them for the buried treasure that may be found. Though the talk veered lightly from one subject to another, it always came back to Pompeii and Herculaneum, to that old, old disaster, that volcanic horror of nineteen centuries ago, and yet at that very moment, though we did not know it, a worse devastation had again laid waste the beautiful treacherous land of southern Italy.

The party broke up in high spirits. Vera, followed by the ecstatic puppy, came into the hall with us. I see her vivid face, her white and silver dress, as she stood below the enormous Russian bear that eternally climbs a pine tree in her vestibule; I can see the gay graceful gesture of her hand as she waves us a last good night.

The moment’s uneasiness that had fallen upon us when Lombardi spoke of the earthquake in Calabria was forgotten. If they are short of news, the Roman papers publish rumors of the Pope’s illness, an earthquake in Calabria, or war between Germany and France, with strict impartiality. It was the old story of “wolf, wolf.” We were as deaf to the first rumble of the storm, as a few days before we had been deaf to the last war scare.

Nothing but a death in the house has ever made so sharp a difference as I knew between the evening of the 28th of December and the morning of the 29th, for it was only on Tuesday, the day after the earthquake, that we in Rome began to understand—but only began to understand—that the greatest disaster of European history had stricken Italy, our Italy, the world’s beloved. To each of us our own country is really dearest; we hope to die and lay our bones in the land where we were born. But Italy, like a lover, for a time makes us forget home, kin, native land, in an infatuation heady and unreasonable as lover’s love. The spell may be broken, never forgotten. This is the reason the whole civilized world not only shuddered, but suffered with Italy in the dark hour as it could have suffered for no other country.

The first news came from Catanzaro, Menteleone, and the other least damaged districts. Messina and Reggio were silent; their silence was ominous. Tuesday was a day of fear and restlessness. We lived from hour to hour, waiting for the extra editions of the papers, hoping, always hoping, that the rumors that every moment grew more grave might prove exaggerated.

“Calabria and Sicily flagellated by earthquake. Enormous damage. Towns in ruins, many dead and wounded. A tidal wave on the coast of Sicily,” such were the headlines of the first editions. Later came the dreadful news: “Messina and Reggio destroyed!”

In the Corso I met Athol. He had been very ill in bed but had struggled out to do his duty, to weigh the news, sift truth from rumor, flash the dreadful tidings to the earth’s end.

“How much must we believe?” I asked him.

“Such reports are always exaggerated at first,” he answered.

We soon learned the first reports did not begin to tell the story.

“Earthquake? It is the end of the world!” people said to each other. As rumor grew to certainty, fear to dreadful fact, the effect upon our minds was very curious; nothing that concerned our private affairs seemed of any consequence. This was equally true of our friends, most of whom were like ourselves, foreigners in Italy. The day after the dinner party I dropped into Vera’s studio. The Signorina had not come in, Beppino, the model, told me; he had never known such a thing happen before. The clay was dry and greatly in need of being dampened. He was forbidden to lift the sheet that covered the statue and dared not do so. If I were not afraid?—

Afraid? What did it matter? I committed the unpardonable sin, stripped off the sheet, and with the big syringe wetted down the grey clay of that statue of Vera’s we had all been so curious about. Her well-kept secret was before me, but I only know that it was a female figure, whether a Psyche or a Niobe I neither knew or cared, nor whether it was good, bad, or indifferent. Vera had only a week to finish the statue that was to compete for the prize she had strained every nerve to win. Three times I wetted down the clay for my friend; after that I forgot it and the statue fell to pieces. Vera had other work to do, and so had I. We ourselves were at rather an important juncture in our lives. J. had just finished his decorative painting, Diana of the Tides, for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington; he was on the point of sending out cards for his exhibition. All this was swept into the background of our thoughts. We lived only for tidings of the South. All day long we could only speak, only think of Calabria and Sicily. At night we only slept to dream of them, to wake from the terror of the nightmare to the greater terror of the reality, and then to sleep painfully again. A feverish desire to do something, to be of some use, seemed to drive us and all the Americans and English we saw. Inaction became intolerable; we were scourged by pity and sorrow into some sort of doing, whether it was of any use or not.

Athol alone of all our intimates stood steady at his post, his finger on the pulse of Europe. His work was quadrupled. Instead of being jarred and thrown off the track like the rest of us, he toiled day and night, sometimes without sleep, often without food, in order that his words—words that would sway a nation, influence a world—should be the wisest, the best words that it was possible for him to say.

When I found that I could be of some small use (or I thought I could) by running about picking up little straws of news for Athol, who was sending off despatches day and night, I took heart and felt that I could get through the day. It may not have been of much real use to him or to Sicily and Calabria, but it was of use to me. Besides, the most infinitesimal thing counts, the universe is built of atoms. For these stricken people to have their story well told was surely something. It was a little comfort to me, it gave me all the repose of mind I knew in those first days to gather these tiny straws, whether or no they were woven into the texture of my friend’s “story.” It helped me to bear the strain if it did not help Athol to do his work.

Day and night the cries and groans of those

sufferers buried alive in the ruins of their houses were in my ears. I felt their pain in my bones, in my brain, in my heart. I breathed pain with every breath till it seemed to me there was nothing but pain in the world. When notes of invitation to dine came—as a few did—it seemed an insult to humanity that tables should be spread with rich food and wine while our brothers agonized and slowly, slowly starved to death. When cards were left with the usual wishes for Buon Anno, one almost laughed at the mockery of people wishing each other Happy New Year. For the most part, though, the conventions and civilities of Rome—the most civilized of cities—were dropped. People threw their social duties or pleasures to the wind, even those whose whole business in life seems to consist of leaving the proper number of cards, making the proper visits, the exchange of banquets, teas and other formal courtesies. Birth and death always strip away these silly rags and trimmings; when there is such a harvest of death, humanity, even the humanity of Rome, perhaps the most sophisticated place in the world, weeps and cowers and stretches out to touch hands with any hand that is warm and living and in which the pulses beat.

Wednesday morning a bugle sounded in the street under our windows. I looked out and saw a group of young men wearing gay fifteenth century plush caps, and on their arms a strip of white cloth with the words “Pro Calabria e Sicilia” in red letters. The bugle sounded again. I knew what the summons meant, caught up the pile of extra clothing I had sorted out, snatched an overcoat and a cloak from the rack in the hall and ran downstairs into the street. I was immediately surrounded by half a dozen lads with fresh shining schoolboy faces. They carried between them, two by two, heavy wooden money boxes with a slit in the top, which they rattled and offered to all who passed.

“Who are these?” I asked the tall boy with a scarlet cap on his mop of brown curls, who relieved me of the coat and cloak.

He made me the bow of a prince as he answered: “We are the students of the University of Rome, Signora, at your service.”

In Italy, an old country where we find that supreme virtue of age, thrift, even spendthrift Americans grow cautious about spending money. I had meant to put a few sous in the box, but the eager eyes, the urgent voices, overcame discretion. I emptied my small purse, heavy with silver for the day’s expenses, into the first money box and so bought the sufferance of the students. I was now immune from other demands and free to follow them on their errand of mercy.

Another trumpet call and the students, laden with gifts, swarmed like honey bees to the hive about the lean obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo, just outside the monastery with the tall cypresses, in whose shade Luther paced, deep in the thoughts that were to change the course of history. In the middle of the piazza stood forage cart number 24 of the 13th Regiment of Artillery. The cart was drawn by two big army mules, one of them ridden by a soldier. At the back of the cart sat the bugler, a hard, merry, Irish-faced man with a snub nose and a missing tooth; he looked a living proof of Boni’s theory that the Celts and the Italians were originally of the same race. In the cart beside the bugler stood a young student with soft brown eyes and the rich coloring of the southern Italian; he wore an orange velvet cap on the back of his head and seemed to be chosen for his beauty, as the third man in the cart (a rather plain shabby fellow with a bandaged throat) had been chosen for his voice. The bugler sounded his trumpet, the driver cracked his whip and the procession started. The cart was closely followed by two artillery men in uniform and surrounded by that host of clustering students, busy as bees with their task of gathering soldi.

The cart passed at a footpace across the Piazza del Popolo under the shadow of the obelisk that Sixtus the Fifth, the great building pope, placed in the middle of that noble square, which lies between the old Flaminian Way and the Corso. The cart jogged and rumbled along just as in the old days the carnival cars jogged and rumbled over the rough stone pavement. The bugler sounded his call again as the cart turned into the Corso; the gallant notes stirred the souls of the people. When the fiery call of the bugle trailed into silence the voice of the tall man with the bandaged throat rang out above the noise of the crowd:

“Pro Calabria e Sicilia! Give much, give little, give something! Every centesimo is wanted down there!”

From every window fell an obolo. A hailstorm of coppers rattled on the pavement, white envelopes with money folded in them came fluttering down like so many white birds. Outside the Palazzo Fiano, where the Italian flag tied with crape hung at half mast, the forage cart halted. At an open window on the top floor two sturdy men servants appeared and threw down a red striped bundle of pillows, another of blankets, a third a great packet of clothes. From every house, rich or poor (there are many poor houses in the Corso), came some offering. Two good beds were carried out from a narrow door. The cart was now filling fast, the money boxes were growing heavy. From a shabby window a pair of black pantaloons came hurtling through the air and the crowd, strung up and nervous with the tension of a night of mourning—for Rome mourned as I had never believed it could mourn for anything—laughed from pure nervousness.

At the shop of A. Pavia, the furrier, on the second floor, two people came to the window, an elderly woman with a face swollen with weeping, and a dark man who looked as if he had not slept. The cart stopped again, and from that modest shop there hailed down no less than twenty warm new fur coats and tippets—and this in Rome, the heart of thrift. If I had not seen it with my eyes I should not have believed it. At Olivieri’s, the grocer’s, a great quantity of canned meats, vegetables and groceries were handed out. From a hosier’s near by came two great packages of men’s shirts, some of cotton, and dozens of brand new flannel shirts. At a tailor’s bale after bale of stout cloth was brought out and thrown into the cart. Another bed with pillows was given by a very poor looking woman; at the sight of this a man of the middle class took the overcoat off his back—it was a cold morning, too, with a good nip in the air—and threw it into the cart. I went into a news vendor’s to buy the last edition of the Messaggero. The woman behind the counter said to me:

“I have not read the papers, I could not—but I know; I am from that country. Never since the beginning of the world has there been such a calamity.”

How did she know? It was only later that most of us began to realize it!

Outside the Palazzo Sciarra I met Vera walking with Donna Hilda.

“Oh, to think that we were warm at your fireside that night when down there they were freezing!” I began.

“I know, I know!” Vera interrupted. “Can you get me some money for my Belgian nuns? I have raised a thousand pounds already, but we shall need more.” I promised I would try; I knew her nuns to be wise as they are good, and that the money would be well spent. It was our first meeting since the dinner. Vera was pale, with disordered hair and hat awry. I think her jacket and skirt did not belong together. It was a shock to see her, with whom dress is a fine art, so unconscious of what she wore, or how she looked. Donna Hilda, a Roman, though white as paper, was perfectly trim and smart in appearance.

“You have no one of yours down there?” I asked Donna Hilda. That was the first, the inevitable question that in those days one asked every Italian one met.

“Not I, thank God! But my grandmother has some cousins. She does not know if they are alive or dead. If they are gone, it would be best if they are all gone together. I am more sorry for those that are saved than for those that are killed.”

I shall always think of the Roman Corso—the gay thoroughfare where in the carnivals of my mother’s time the wild horses used to run their race from the Piazza del Popolo at one end to the Piazza Venezia at the other—as it looked that day. I never saw the barberi, but I have seen many carnival processions when the balconies of the Corso were full of pretty women throwing flowers and confetti, and the street of young men tossing flowers to the belles in the carriages and balconies. To-day the street was filled with these stern-faced students in their gay carnival caps. Every cart, carriage or automobile that passed carried a student on each step, asking, begging, demanding alms! They were no respecters of persons. The Japanese Ambassador, with his inscrutable face, and his wife and doll-like child passed in their unbecoming European dress. They alone looked impassive and indifferent in a crowd where every other face was tense and tragic. The students who stood on each step of the Ambassador’s carriage would not be denied; I could not see in the end if their passion or his passivity won the day.

It was nearly one o’clock when forage wagon number 24 reached the Piazza Venezia. The cart was piled high. The streets were emptying; people were going home to lunch. The students and the tall man with the bandaged throat held a consultation, to decide whether or no there was any use going on with their work. Meanwhile, the bugler, sitting on his stool at the back of the cart, lighted a cigarette and began to read a newspaper. The sight of his sturdy merry face was somehow calming. If the end of the world was coming, had begun, while his world lasted it was for him to blow his bugle!—to call upon the people to give food, clothes, money, everything, pro Calabria e Sicilia.

From the first J. refused to read the papers or hear the details, and from the first he said, “I want to go down and dig if I can get the chance, but I don’t want to hear about it.”

For some days there seemed no chance of his carrying out his wish of “going down to dig.” The red tape, the slowness, the utter incapacity of the railroads, the post, the telegraph to cope with the situation seemed maddening; it may have been inevitable, it probably was. He offered his services here, there, everywhere, but martial law had been proclaimed and it was impossible to reach the earthquake region without great influence.

Thursday, December 31st, the American Ambassador, Mr. Lloyd Griscom, despatched the first American relief party from Rome to Messina. The Ambassador himself had hoped to lead the expedition. In those days of anguish when we knew that thousands of lives might yet be saved if only help came in time, it was torture for such a man to sit with idle hands,—hands that might dig!—no matter how actively he might be working with brain and wits. He soon realized that he could not leave his post; his place was Rome, his work to inspire, organize and plan the American Relief, to dispense the nation’s largess!

Major Landis, the military attaché of the embassy, was put in charge of the party. His special care was to search for the bodies of

Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, our Consul and his wife, and to recover the papers of the Consulate, for we knew now that the Consulate had been entirely destroyed. Mr. Bayard Cutting, our Consul from Milan, was of the party, and Mr. Winthrop Chanler, whose mission was to look up missing Americans. From the moment the news of the earthquake was known in America, the Embassy was besieged by telegrams from people at home who had friends in Sicily. The largest American colony in Southern Italy is at Taormina, only two hours distant by train from Messina. It was impossible for our Taorminesi to send word of their safety to their relations at home, who were torn with anxiety about them. It was at this time we first heard that Miss Catharine Bennett Davis of the Bedford Reformatory was traveling in Sicily and it was feared was in Messina, and of Anne Lee, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Paton, Harry Bowdoin, Charles King and Charles Williams, all Americans settled in Taormina by Etna, a town at first believed to have suffered severely.

We went up to the station to see the relief party start. The train was half an hour behind time. It was easy to see the impatience of the Americans to be off.

“You have plenty of provisions?” a friend on the platform asked Chanler.

“I have a sack of Bologna sausages, a whole Parmesan cheese, and a case of Nocera water,” was the answer.

“Where will you sleep?” asked an anxious wife of one of the travelers.

“We have one small tent, the last in Rome,—all the rest have been bought up,—and several umbrellas.”

Food, water, shelter were the three indispensables; they were going to a desert that lacked all these, and the torrential rain that began on the fatal day still continued.

“Try to establish wireless communication between a warship in the harbor and the Marconi station at Monte Mario,” said Athol to a press representative. “If that’s impossible, wire Rome via Malta.”

“Don’t expect news of me till I bring it myself,” one of the travelers called as the tardy train moved out of the station.

It seemed hopeless to expect news. Our first friend to leave was Colonel Delmé Radcliffe of the English Embassy (the famous hunter of lions), who went down on the first train after the disaster. Later several official people we knew and one or two newspaper men followed. After they left Naples we heard no more from them. They disappeared into the blue, and we learned not to look for news of them till they themselves brought it.

As the train pulled out we heard the tramp, tramp of marching men coming up the street—more soldiers for the south. Nearly all the garrison at Messina had been killed; every day regiments of soldiers went down to that grim battle-field, some to lose their lives, all to suffer agonies of mind and body, for as usual the army bore the brunt of the disaster—and bore it well.

As we left the station we met Princess Nadine, called “the first citizen of Rome” by reason of her splendid work for the poor sick children of the city. Something was said about meeting the profughi (refugees) who were expected on the next train from Naples. She shook her great benevolent head and answered firmly:

“That is for the rest of you. I must keep to my work. My sick babies cannot be neglected. Everybody else will do for Calabria and Sicily; they only have me.”

The Princess was right. She belongs to the regular working army of philanthropists. The reserve volunteer force of the world was already mustering for this world disaster.

A little farther on we met our friend, Lombardi, the great mathematician, carrying a traveling shawl and an umbrella. He stopped to speak to us:

“Just in time to say good-by! I am leaving by the next train.”

“For Messina?”

He laughed—“No, to get out of Messina—that’s more than I can do in Rome! I am off for Morocco, the farthest place from Messina I know. The Moors won’t trouble themselves much about the earthquake. I must have more quiet than can be found in Italy this year, if I am to finish my calculations.”

Just as we were getting into our cab outside the station our friend Nerone came along. He looked pale, red-eyed, completely knocked out.

“What is the matter?” I asked. “Have you been ill?”

“Matter?” he cried, astonished at the question. “This thing has made me ill. I had to take a purge and go to bed.”

I never heard that Nerone did anything else for the sufferers—taking a purge did seem an odd way of showing sympathy.

As we drove from the station, past the Baths of Diocletian, we met the regiment, whose measured tread we had heard, and recognized, marching gallantly at the head of his company, a young captain whom we had often watched drilling his men in the great field across the Tiber. We called him Philippus for that soldier of Crotona the Segesteans found slain among their foes after the battle, and to whose memory on account of his superhuman beauty a temple was erected. Philippus was our neighbor; now that he was leaving it seemed he was almost our friend. The barracks where he and his soldiers lived were near our house. It was their bugle that every night at halfpast ten sounded the call we too obeyed, “Go to bed, go to bed, put out the lights.” The soldiers were most of them mere boys with beardless faces. When we should meet again they would not look so young. Those who went down to the earthquake region aged fast as men do in battle.

I haunted the station in those days, watching the departure of the bands of engineers, firemen, doctors, medical students that went down from Rome by every train that left for Naples. From Milan, from Turin, from Florence, from every city or town of northern Italy, help poured down towards the stricken country. The Knights of Malta sent a field hospital and a corps of doctors and nurses. Food, clothes, medicines, tents, nurses, doctors, the great stream of help flowed steadily towards the south. The railroads were not equal to the tremendous strain put upon them, and the congestion of traffic was one of the hardest of Italy’s trials. Her people were starving, dying of cold and hunger, while the whole railroad system was congested and the good food and the warm clothes, instead of reaching the poor victims, were shunted on side-tracks or delayed in freight houses for weeks, even months. It was inevitable that this should have happened; the same thing would have happened in any country. But everything was against Italy. The unheard-of severity of the winter was not the least element of danger and difficulty. The railroad is managed by the Government, that poor overburdened Government that tries its best to carry the great weight put upon it. The strain of carrying south the vast stream of provisions and supplies and of carrying north the enormous numbers of the refugees flying from Sicily was too much for it. What nation, what railroad system could have handled such a situation? One sinister commodity took precedence of all others—quicklime; already the menace of pestilence was in people’s minds, for now we knew that in Messina, a city of 200,000 souls, more than half the inhabitants had perished.

On Saturday, the second of January, Athol asked me to visit one of the first families of refugees who had arrived in Rome. I found them in a gaunt new barrack of a house in an arid street of one of the ugliest quarters of new Rome.

“You have some superstiti here?” I inquired of the porter’s wife, who came out of the little den where she lived and cooked (chiefly garlic it appeared), for her husband and children.

“Oh yes, poor people! You will find them on the second floor. You are not the first who has asked for them.” She stopped and looked at me curiously. “Excuse me, you too have perhaps come to inquire for news of some relative down there?”

“No, no, thank Heaven! only to ask if I can do anything for them.”

“So much the better! There is enough to do.” The porter’s wife nodded and went back to her cooking. I climbed two long flights of the cheap, stark building and rang a strident bell. The thin varnished pine door was opened a crack, and a handsome slatternly woman looked out. When I asked to see the profughi, she stood aside and let me pass. In the entry I met two people coming out, a shabby man with a hard dry face like an eagle’s and a very beautiful young girl with a waxen complexion. When they heard me ask for the profughi they stopped and looked at me so intently that I paused and looked helplessly back at them.

“You have asked to see the profughi,” said the man in a harsh dry voice; “do you possibly know something of them—or of others—down there—?”

“Nothing. And you?—do you know anything of Messina?”

“I?” laughed the eagle-faced man drearily, “I am of Messina. This one also,” he looked at the girl, “though I never saw her till today. We go here, there, together, asking news—her people are all there and mine.”

“Come,” said the girl, “do not let us waste time.” She spoke with authority as one used to giving orders and having them obeyed. I noticed then how sumptuously she was dressed. They went down the stairs together, a strange pair, the shabby eagle-faced man and the young lovely lady. I never saw the girl again, or knew whether she found those for whom she sought.

“It is the truth that I have not had five minutes to comb myself today,” said the padrona, who had opened the door, a dark woman of the noble Trasteverine type. She smoothed her magnificent black hair that lay in full natural waves over her low forehead, and pulled up the collar of her white jacket to hide her beautiful bronze throat. “Believe me, Signora, that blessed bell has never stopped ringing. Holy Apostles! One would think that the Messinesi were different from other Christians, that they had two heads, everybody must have a look at them.”

“I am sorry to disturb you,” I began.

“No, no,” she said, “I did not mean that. What is it to do? They are relations of relations of my husband’s. They knew our name and address in Rome and, having no other friends, they came to us. They arrived yesterday. We have taken the furniture out of one of our rooms, borrowed a few beds, and done what we could to make them comfortable. Poor souls! Anything that you can do—” she threw open the door of a large apartment, evidently the property room of some theatrical company. The floor space on the left was taken up with bundles of stage costumes neatly folded and tagged. A white toga with an olive wreath and a pair of sandals lay next a costume Othello might have worn, judging by the coffee-colored stockinette tucked into the yellow satin cloak. On the right of the door were four decent beds; in the corner stood a dining table with a loaf of bread, a green wicker basket of ricotta, and a flask of Genzano. The room was half full of people.

“This lady wishes to talk with the Messinesi,” cried the padrona, good-naturedly elbowing the crowd, evidently friends and hangers-on of the house. “You have seen them, yes? They only have two eyes apiece and one mouth? Well, then make room for the stranger lady. She may do something besides stare at the poor abandoned creatures.”

The people readily fell back and I found myself face to face with one of the first families of the survivors who had reached Rome. At sight of them I was overcome with suffocating emotion. It was a full minute before I could speak, before I could see through the sudden mist that blinded me. It was as if their sufferings had set them apart, their sorrows hallowed them.

In the middle of the group stood an old man and woman, holding each other by the hand. Both were bent and wan looking; the woman seemed the less shaken of the two. She had a wonderful shrivelled face with gray-blue eyes and a brown seamed skin, stooping shoulders covered by a small peasant shawl, and an alert wiry little body. It was my business to ask certain questions, but it was more than a minute before I could get out the words.

“What are your names?”

“I am Rosina Calabresi,” the staunch old woman quavered. “This is my husband; he cannot talk much yet. He is better now, but for three days after the earthquake he could not say a word. This is our son Francesco, and this is his wife.” Francesco, a soft-eyed young man, patted his wife’s hand; she hid her face on his shoulder and began to weep. “This is my grandson,” Rosina continued, “he is of Reggio. He was staying with us that he might go to school in Messina. His mother is my eldest daughter. We have not yet heard from his parents. We do not know whether they are alive or dead.”

The boy, a pale, interesting lad of fourteen, looked at me with serious unmoved face.

“My husband was a government employé formerly,” the old woman continued; “he was a postman.” She shook him gently by the arm. “Cannot you speak to the lady?” The old postman moved his lips dumbly. “He is only seventy-eight years old, and I am seventy,” Rosina went on. “Francesco is our youngest son.” I asked the young woman her name.

“Lucia,” she said, and hid her face again. The young man comforted her.

“She will do better soon,” said the old woman, nodding to me.

“When do you expect the baby?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “it will be nine months tomorrow, the first child, we have not been married quite a year.” Her soft eyes overflowed again.

“Do not cry. You have your husband and you will have your child. That is something to be thankful for. Did all your family escape?”

“Yes, all that were in our house, six of us,” said Francesco. “We do not know about the others.” I heard a deep sigh behind me and turned to see a little wan child, bandaged and pillowed up in a great bed. She never stirred or smiled during my whole visit. When I spoke to her, she only gazed at me with great sombre eyes that had lost their childishness, eyes that had seen sights of horror they could never forget.

“That is my grandchild Caterina,” the old woman explained. “She has been lame from birth. When we escaped from the house I carried her in my arms. As we ran the earth beneath us opened and threw stones at us. One of them struck Caterina and broke her lame leg.”

“Tell me how you escaped?”

The young man, Francesco Calabresi, a plumber of Messina, now spoke:

“We slept in two rooms on the ground floor behind the shop. We were all asleep in bed when the earthquake came. There were three long shocks and the earth groaned as it rocked from side to side as if it were in pain. Though the house fell down about us we were not hurt. The door into the street was jammed and would not open. I found a small hole in the wall near it and managed to crawl through it and to help the others out.”

“It was dark, and cold, and it rained—Oh, God, how it rained!” cried the old woman, “and we were all, except Lucia, naked as the day we were born.”

Lucia smiled for the first time and opened her dress to show me her high chemise.

“Yes, I had this on; it was the only thing we saved.” She was evidently proud that she alone of all the family had escaped with a garment to hide her nakedness. In Sicily the old Italian habit of sleeping without night clothes still prevails. There is a widespread prejudice against night clothes. Nena, an old Venetian servant, once told me that it was very unwholesome to sleep dressed. This absolute nakedness, both of the living and of the dead, seemed to the rescuers the last touch of horror.

“It was quite dark,” the old woman continued, “only out over the sea there was a strange light like fire. We found our way to the Villa Mazzini. Part of the railing and the gates had been thrown down so that we could get into the garden. That is how we escaped being killed. We waited together till it was light, then Francesco went and tried to find help. We stayed in the villa two days and two nights. The rain never stopped for one moment. We had no food, no clothes, no shelter, but we were alive and safe.”

“Did you see any of your neighbors?”

“No, but as we ran we heard people all about us crying ‘misericordia.’”

“Did you expect to escape?”

“Oh, no! I believed it was the end of the world. The earth shook and rumbled underneath us. When it grew light it seemed as if the mountains of Calabria were coming at us across the straits to crush us.”

Francesco now took up the story: “I made my way down to the Faro. When it was light I found a boat and rowed out to the ships in the harbor. Later, when the Russian vessels came, they gave me a little food and a few clothes. In the end they took us on board their ship, they fed and clothed us. Russians, did I say, Signora? No, they were angels. They took us and many, many others to Naples on their great ship. At Naples the highest signoria waited upon us as if they had been servants. They gave us white bread and wine and more clothes, shoes also, and they showed us the kindness of brothers and sisters. We shall never forget them. Then the Duchess of Aosta paid our fare to Rome.”

“What? The railroad did not take you free?”

“Oh, no! Every one was paid for by the Duchessa benedetta.”

As they seemed pleased to have me stay with them, I sat and comforted them as well as I could for an hour. After a little Lucia came and sat beside me and promised me that she would not grieve when her time came to go to the hospital. We made out a list of the things most needed, headed by a set of plumber’s tools for Francesco and a basket for the baby to sleep in. I promised to return in a few days, and as I rose to take leave they clung to me as if I had been an old friend.

“Is it your wish in the future,” I said to Francesco, “to remain in Rome, or later to return to Messina?” Even now we outsiders had not yet grasped the awful completeness of the disaster.

At my question Rosina became terrified, and for the first time in our interview lost her self-control. She threw both her hands above her head with a dreadful gesture of despair and shrieked:

“Messina? What is it that you say? Messina non esiste più!”

It was from Rosina that the eagle-faced man had got his phrase; it was from her that I for the first time had an inkling of the true extent of the calamity. When I look back at these last months during which I have lived with the thought of Messina always with me, till it seems as if the word Messina must be found seared upon my heart when I am dead, I hear those words, “Messina non esiste più!” When I pass in review the hundreds of survivors I have seen and talked with in Rome, Syracuse, Palermo, finally in Messina itself, I see clearest of all the face of Rosina, the ancient woman; I hear her shriek of woe:

“Messina non esiste più!”

Wednesday, December 30th, the King and Queen of Italy sailed through the straits and into the harbor of Messina. As their ship, the “Vittorio Emanuele,” approached the Faro, the gunners of the Russian cruisers, the English men-of-war, and the Italian battleships began to fire the royal salute.

“Cease firing!” The signal flashed from the King’s ship; this was no time for royal salvos. The “Vittorio Emanuele” crept cautiously along, feeling every inch of her way, for a new terror had been added to the old perils of Scylla and Charybdis. It was said that under the seething waters of the uneasy straits a submarine volcano had arisen, and no one knew how much the bottom of straits or harbor had been altered by the action of this hidden volcano.

A fleet of small boats filled with desperate half-naked men put off from the shore and surrounded the King’s ship. This was the third day after the earthquake; the survivors were starving, dying of cold and hunger, when in every Italian village men and women had taken the clothes from their backs, the food from their mouths for them, when in Rome the poor prisoners in the gaols had voted to a man that the little sums they had earned and put by against their release should be spent for them. The shivering figures in the boats stretched out appealing hands towards the King.

“Aiutarteci, aiutarteci!” they cried. “Help us, Majesty. Give us to eat, give us to drink, clothes to cover us, the abandoned of God and man!” These broken men were the King’s escort, their frenzied cries Messina’s greeting to her sovereign. In a crazy felucca a tall old sailor held up a hand to silence the clamoring crew, snatched a red biretta from his silver curls, waved it above his head with a ringing cry:

“Evviva! We have the King, we have all!”

“Thou sayest well, Luigi,” the young avvocato, Arcangelo Bonanno, called out from the pier. He knew Luigi, the old fisherman, and had sailed with him from Giardini to Messina

in the “Stella del Mare,” one of the few boats spared by the tidal wave that had made total wrecks of most of the fishing smacks along the coast.

As the “Vittorio Emanuele” neared the shore those on board saw the white façade of the palazzata through the gray rain—for still it rained and always rained a fine cold rain, “not quite like any other rain,” as Rosina Calabresi had said. “Earthquake rain” I remember she called it. At first sight it seemed as if the palazzata—the splendid row of palaces two miles long, that lined the sickle-shaped harbor fronting the straits—was little damaged. As they came nearer they saw that the outer wall, with its sculptured façade of graceful reclining goddesses, was an empty shell.

“There were three shocks,” Rosina said. “One from side to side, one up and down as if the earth jumped under us, one round and round; that was the worst, the very earth groaned with the pain of it.”

These three shocks that reduced the beautiful city of Messina to a heap of ruins, lasted just thirty-two seconds! The sidewise movement threw down the side walls; then the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth floors, with all that in them lived, dropped one over the other in awful chaos to the bottom of the cellars. Along the water front high in air hung a cloud of dun smoke; for after earthquake and tidal wave came fire. That drifting smoke was the only thing in sight that moved as the King approached; it might have been the soul of Messina hanging over the dead city.

The King’s launch made its way through the harbor’s dreadful debris,—there were floating corpses everywhere,—and drew up at the heavy stone quay; here the land looked like the waves of the sea, in some places it had sunk six feet below the water, in others it had been heaved high in air. A long line of unrecognized dead had been laid out for identification; naked and helpless the poor disfigured corpses washed to and fro with the tide, while those among the survivors who had the heart and courage tried to find a name for each. Our friend the Avvocato Bonanno (he had spent the night of the 28th in Taormina and so escaped destruction) was helping make up the tragic rollcall.

“That is Maddalena, youngest daughter of Count Q.; I danced with her on Christmas Day. This is her old grandmother, yes, I am sure, I remember the little mole on her cheek. And this—might be Nina, the eldest daughter; look for an emerald scarab on her left hand. Ah, God, the human brutes!” The emerald ring, the finger it had graced were both gone, cut off by ghouls that rob the dead.

The launch touched the quay, and the King stepped on shore where he was met by the few city officials who had survived. The spokesman began a halting address of welcome:

“The visit of your august majesty is an honor that we shall never forget, in the name of the city—“

The King cut the good man short with an abrupt:

“Scusi, do not let us talk nonsense,” and in silence led the way to the barracks where hundreds of his brave soldiers had perished.

“Snuffed out,” Bonanno said, “or so we hope, like so many rush candles.” A few steps farther on the King met four soldiers carrying a wounded officer on a litter. The King glanced at the man and a flash of recognition lighted his face.

“Fermate!” he cried. The bearers set down the litter; the King propped the poor head, rolling helplessly from side to side, with a fragment of gray military cloak folded for a pillow, wiped the ashen face, and whispered the one brave word ever on his lips “Coraggio!”

The streets through which the King passed were mountains of rubbish, the houses heaps of ruins, the air pestilential; the fire still burned in many places, and the smell of roasting flesh was simply overpowering. The few survivors who hung about the ruins added to the despair of the scene; some crazed with hunger, thirst, despair, behaved like maddened children; they talked of their dead or lost families with the terrible indifference of the insane; their minds were not strong enough to grasp what had happened. Others, oftenest women, appealed to every passer-by, imploring help in their frenzied efforts to reach some beloved being buried under tons of masonry. A woman tearing desperately with her bare hands at a huge mass of stone it would have taken a regiment of men a week to move recognized the King; she ran as if in frantic haste, threw

herself at his feet, raised her bleeding hands in an agony of appeal.

“Maestá, aiuto! Save them! They are alive. I hear them, my husband, my son, my only son.”

“It is too much,” the King broke from her with a sob. “Help her, you others, if you can,” he cried to his aides and pushed on through the ghastly ruin of what three days ago had been the famous Marina, one of the most beautiful streets in the world.

“The King’s walk through Messina,” said Bonanno the avvocato who followed him, “was like the walk of Dante and Virgil through the Inferno. At every step raving men, weeping women clutched at him, clung to him, stretched out their hands to him. Those hands! I dream of them now, hairy hands of men, transparent hands of women, old shrivelled hands with gripping fingers, chubby hands of little children lifted to the King, as if he could help them. I would not have been in his place, no, not for three kingdoms.”

From that desperate throng one tragic figure must stand out clear in the King’s memory as it does in Bonanno’s—the Deputy Ludovico Fulci pacing back and forth before the ruin of his brother’s house. Though Bonanno knew him well, he did not at first recognize him; in four days the deputy had grown twenty years older.

“Nicoló, Nicoló! Art thou yet alive?” he shrieked. “Oh, my brother, make one little sign! Until tonight I heard his voice crying for help! It has grown weaker and weaker; now I hear no sound. If help had come in time, I could have saved him, saved my brother, do you hear? Him, his wife, his little child, God knows how many others now dead, sotto le macerie.”

Under the masonry! No one who was in Italy during this dreadful season will ever forget that phrase, “sotto le macerie,” the deadly refrain of the great tragedy. Where is your mother, your lover, your child? The answer was always the same “sotto le macerie.”

The King, Bonanno said, above all else insisted that his visit should bring no interruption to the rescue work: indeed it proved an impetus to it, for he did much to establish something approaching system. The work of excavation was begun by the Russian sailors. Three Russian warships, the “Cesarevich,” the “Makaroff” and the “Slava,” cruising off the Calabrian coast, met a vessel—some say English, some say Italian—flying to Naples with the news of the earthquake: the Russians hurried to Messina, they were the first to arrive on the ground. What they did there Sicily will remember as long as her history survives. Like Francesco Calabresi, my plumber, the Avvocato Bonanno described their work in rescuing the entombed men, women and children as something superhuman.

“They did not wait for orders, they did not need them; each of them was an inspired leader; they saw no danger, but rushed like madmen among crumbling ruins, toppling walls; they worked like Titans I tell you. The English were not long behind the Russians, as you may believe. What a people! We Sicilians know what we owe them! Did these foreigners save many lives? Yes, hundreds, thousands of lives. More than all, the sight of their incredible labors—I say it to you again, they worked like gods not men—broke the spell of apathy that at first held us powerless. Madonna mia! I myself felt it, though at Taormina the shock was light. At first I was stunned, dazed, lacked power to lift a hand! These unfortunates, you may believe, were worse. The first man I met after I returned to Messina was a colleague of mine; we had worked in the same office. He was quite stupefied. He did not know if any of his family had escaped or not, he did not seem to care. The visit of the King roused the people; ah! it was like cordial to one who faints. Imagine, on the fourth day hardly a cup of water, scarcely a loaf of bread had come to us from the outside. Was it wonderful we believed the end of the world had come, that we were abandoned by God and man?”

And all this time the great stream of supplies was pouring in a steady flood toward Messina. The city was like a man who dies of starvation in the midst of plenty, because he has lost the power to swallow.

“I went first to the house where I had lived,” Bonanno said. “It was a heap of ruins fallen outwards into the street; the inner wall was standing. How did I know the house? From the crimson paper on my bedroom wall. That wall—I can show it to you still—was perfect. There was the crucifix my mother hung over the bed, the palm from last Palm Sunday; there was the Venetian mirror without a crack, a portrait of Lola, the Spanish dancing girl (she is among the missing). A lot of soldiers were at work excavating our house; an officer with an iron crowbar lay flat on a mass of rubbish, and pried with all his might at a great stone coping from under which came faint groans. Another officer lay on his back below and somehow,—it looked a miracle,—they got a purchase on the stone. With strength that seemed incredible they tugged and heaved and at last lifted the great mass of granite; then they stopped to breathe and the soldiers quickly cleared away the smaller rubbish. We took out Agnese, the wife of my landlord, and her little child; they could not speak; their mouths were full of mortar. When we had freed their mouths and nostrils from the mortar we found they were both too much hurt to stand. We carried them to the field hospital in the piazza, where the doctors from the English ships were at work under a tarpaulin stretched over some posts. Not much of a hospital, but they worked, those doctors, as the sailors worked, like demons, as one might say, with all respect. Wet to the skin, fasting like we others, but working till their eyes refused to see, their hands to use the knife.”

“Was Agnese’s husband saved too?”

“Antonio? Yes, he was saved; that was a strange case, one of the strangest. He was saved by his dog. That blessed animal—I knew him well, his name was Leone—would not let Antonio sleep, but barked and barked and pulled at the blankets till Antonio got up from his bed, dressed himself and went out of the house. It was about half past four o’clock. He could not tell why he did so; it seemed as if the dog’s intelligence controlled his. Leone led the way, Antonio followed to the Piazza del Duomo, where he sat down on the steps of the Cathedral. Leone was not satisfied and still barked and whined and ran back and forth, until Antonio finally got up and went and sat down on a bench in the middle of the piazza. He was sitting there with the dog beside him when the earthquake came and the marble Bambino fell down out of the arms of the Madonna over the door of the Matrice, just at the place where he had been sitting; if he had remained there he would surely have been killed. These things

are not to be explained but there were many such happenings.”

“Were there any others saved from your house?”

“Agnese’s old grandfather. He lay quite still in his bed and went down in it to the lowest floor of the house. The beams fell so as to protect the bed. When we found him he was without a scratch, but quite blind from the dust in his eyes. I shook the old man by the shoulder to rouse him. He turned his blind eyes towards me and cried with the voice of a wounded lion:

“‘Leave me in peace! The earth is dying; I die with the earth!’”

Arcangelo’s stories of miraculous escapes would fill a volume; that of Marietta is one of the most extraordinary.

“Marietta certainly owes her life to me,” he began, “or rather to my ears. You must know that my ears are remarkable—so were my father’s. I have in truth the hearing of a cat. No one else could have heard the faint knocking inside the heap of rubbish that had been Ugo’s workshop. At first I doubted my senses, then I remembered that Marietta lived in the little room behind the carpenter’s shop, and it occurred to me at the same time that Ugo was working at a job in Catania. I gave information and after many hours of hard work the soldiers succeeded in making a space large enough to let down a basket with food and water to the woman buried under the ruins, whose tapping I had heard. I could now hear what she said; she was quite unhurt; her bed had been placed under an arch, the safest place of course, and the arch remained standing; she had not so much as a bruise. The house had fallen so that unless great care was taken the remaining walls would crumble and crush the woman under the arch. The fifth morning I came with a piece of bread and three dried figs I had found in the ruins for her; I made the usual signal; there was no answer.

“‘Marietta, canst thou hear?’ I called to her. She did not reply. I put my ear to the hole; what did I hear? A sharp thin voice that wailed and wailed but said no word.

“‘Marietta, art thou alive?’ ‘I am alive, and so is the child. Water, for the love of Mary!’ Poverina! Alone in that dark pit she had borne her first child. On the eighth day we took Marietta and her baby from the macerie. It was a boy, stout and strong as a young bull, for we had fed the mother and her milk had not failed. Miracles? Ah, well, that is as one believes. I myself put the two of them on the train for Taormina. There be many rich forestieri at Taormina; I doubt not they have cared for Marietta; they have great charity, those forestieri of Taormina. They have charity, and they understand us a little, those who live among us here in Sicily; they shared our calamity, they knew our people. Some others do not understand, and should not judge. It may be true that this official ran away, that this other was relieved of office for incompetence. This they know, but they do not know the state of mind and body to which those men were reduced. It was better that they fled, for they were not fit to hold positions of responsibility; few of us were; we were too much broken. No one who has not seen Messina, who has not known the survivors, can understand; it was not like a battle, where men go in prepared for death, it was quite another thing!”

While the King was at Messina martial law was proclaimed. General Mazza, who was at home on sick leave, left his bed and hurried to Messina to take command of the troops. I asked Bonanno what manner of man the general was; I remember his answer well.

“A good man and a brave soldier. He has but one fault, the incurable one: he is sixty-eight years old and out of health besides!”

The proclaiming of martial law was a military necessity. The prison at Messina had been destroyed by the earthquake, and the convicts, the scum of Sicily, were at large. From Naples, from Palermo, from all over Italy, the offscouring of the cities raced, like beasts of prey who scent the carnage of battle, to the ruin of Messina, the beautiful. It seemed as if Nature’s cruelty in destroying half a province roused the basest passions in the base, and the noblest in the noble. The soldiers on their rounds at night saw things—desecrations of the helpless dead, offences against nature—that turned them from thoughtless boys to grave men. Here again the Russians, swift to save, swift to punish, terrible in their anger, set the example. A young Russian midshipman, a beautiful boy,—his blue eyes were like ice with fire below, Bonanno said,—found one of the human vultures at work. The midshipman had very little Italian, only a few words; they were enough:

“Ladro!” he cried and put his pistol to the ruffian’s head, “condannato a morte,” and fired.

After this the soldiers’ orders were explicit; when the offence was monstrous, the human monsters were shot without delay. It is a terrible thing to proclaim martial law but there was no other way. Not only were the Red Cross Knights of Europe, England and America pressing on to the relief of the afflicted city, but the murderers, thieves and ravishers from the four quarters of the earth were hastening in search of plunder and rapine to Messina, the rich, to Reggio, the prosperous, the sister city across the uneasy straits.

“Do you know the worst?” Bonanno whispered, as if it were too horrible to speak aloud. “Some of our girls—think of it—lost, dazed, stricken creatures, were kidnapped for the brothels of Naples! The slave hunters saw their chance from the first hour; who knows how many of our Sicilian virgins, the purest, the most beautiful of God’s daughters, are now lost in that hideous, that worst of all slavery? Ah, it is too much! Dear God, had we not enough to bear without this? One I have tried to trace, a flower, a lily, the girl whose eyes said to mine, ‘When the time comes for you to speak, I am ready.’ She was seen alive and well on board one of the first boats that left for Naples; she has never been heard of since.”

Bonanno dashed the tears from his eyes, shook his fist in the direction of Naples. “Accursed city!” he cried, “sink of Europe!”

 

While King Victor was in Messina helping organize the rescue work, Queen Elena remained in the harbor shaping the course of the hospital-ship work. She went from ship to ship, for every vessel, merchantman or man-of-war of whatever nationality, became for the nonce a floating hospital. The most seriously wounded were carried on board the ships, where they could receive better care than in the hospital stations on shore where, in the midst of confusion, and difficulties beyond belief, the faithful surgeons worked early and late under the pitiless rain, drenched to the skin, fasting and suffering with thirst and cold like all the rest. It was a time when men and women toiled with every fibre of their being; there was too much to do to allow of specialization; the King planned, but he lent a hand too when he saw the chance; the Queen practically shaped the whole future course of the hospital-ship work; but that was not enough. She rolled up her sleeves, put on her apron and went to work to help the doctors as only a good nurse can. On board one of the floating hospitals she received the wounded, washed and dressed their wounds, bandaged broken limbs, soothed the sick, comforted the dying. It was then that she came into her true woman’s kingdom, earned for once and all the title of Queen Elena the Good.

Her fame as a nurse has been spread throughout Italy, throughout the world, not by courtiers or reporters, but by the patients she tended. That is a sort of reputation that lasts. In Syracuse a young Messinese said to a Blue Sister from Malta, who was doing up her shattered arm:

“Guardi, the Queen put on that bandage; mind you roll it as smoothly as she did.”

In a Naples hospital a child was heard to cry, “The Queen did not hurt me as much as you do, and she had to pick the mortar out of the wound before she dressed it.”

It is said that more than one woman died in the Queen’s arms at Messina; it is certain that she was so much impressed by what she saw there that she became the most impassioned of all who worked for Italy in the dark hour. She suffered even in her person; one poor frenzied creature in her struggles to throw herself overboard, struck the Queen and hurt her, it was feared at first seriously. Her example of service was followed by the court ladies and by heroic women of every class; her energy aroused hope in the forlorn remnant of the stricken people; it was a moral tonic and stimulus to the whole nation.

When they left Rome both the King and Queen believed the disaster to be even more complete than it proved; they had been told that all the inhabitants of Messina and Reggio were killed. Orders were given to the Roman Red Cross Society to wait their instructions. When they reached Messina and found how matters stood, the Queen sent a wire to the president of the Red Cross asking for nurses and doctors to be sent down. From Vera, one of the first to volunteer, I heard something of the expedition.

“I got my summons on New Year’s day—you remember, we met at the Campidoglio that morning and you told me where to go for shoes? I had just succeeded in finding those shoes for my profughi when I was called to the telephone. Could I be ready to start that evening for Messina? Naturally I could—we all could; not that we had been idle, for there was plenty to do for the refugees already on our hands in Rome; but if I could be of more use at Messina, I was ready to go. There were forty of us women in the Red Cross party and a number of surgeons. The officer in command made us an amusing speech—he didn’t mean to be amusing: ‘You will take the minimum of luggage and the maximum of obedience,’ he said. ‘You will drop your titles and remember you are under military discipline and that insubordination will be punished’—then came a hint of a dark cabin and of manacles for insubordinates. We listened to him and felt that we were back in the days of the French Revolution, that we should henceforth be known as Citizeness this or that. Many of us had titles, but not all. There was Princess Teano—you knew her as the beautiful Vittoria Colonna; there was the Marchesa Guiccioli, whose husband is equerry to the Queen Mother; there was Countess Teresina Tua, the violinist; Madame Agresti, Rossetti’s daughter. We left Rome for Spezia, way up at the top of Italy; it seemed a waste of time when we wanted to go to the south; it was a dreadful night journey; I sent Natika back to Rome from Spezia.”

Vera sighed; Natika was her Calmuck maid; that little sigh was the only whimper I ever heard from her through these months when she lived, worked, spent her genius, power, money, all that she has and is as freely as water pro Calabria e Sicilia.

“At Spezia we caught the troop-ship ‘Taormina’ bound for Messina with a regiment of soldiers. After endless delays we at last set sail; before we were well outside the harbor we were recalled by a ‘wireless’ and had to turn round and go back. I sketched the harbor and Gulf of Spezia, the arsenal, the dockyard, the two forts, the purple hills behind, the white fishing villages in the foreground. It was all interesting, but the delay was hard to bear! Every heart-beat spelt ‘hurry’; every hour of waiting meant so many fewer lives saved. The soldiers who had only just embarked were ordered on shore again, and we had to wait until they had all disembarked!”

Vera’s small nervous hands opened and shut impatiently. She speaks with a slight lisp that is like the soft pedal of a piano to the music of her voice. Vera was brought up by an English governess; she is many-colored as a chameleon, polished as a many-faceted jewel; when she is with us she turns the English facet to the light.

“As we passed the Bay of Lerici I thought of Lord Byron and of Shelley who passed his last days there. Is it true you no longer read those poets? We do in Russia.”

At sunrise on the morning of Saturday, January 2nd, five days after the earthquake, the “Taormina” with the Red Cross party on board sailed into the harbor of Messina; the ships at anchor saluted by dipping the colors; on the admiral’s vessel, the marines presented arms. The “Taormina” dropped anchor near enough the shore for those on board to see the sunken Marina, the great yawning cracks in the solid ground, the railroad station with the cars heaped together as if there had been a collision. A locomotive lay overturned on its side: some of the cars had been carried out to sea, where they lay idly washing to and fro, others had been seized and turned into dwellings by the wretched superstiti. An endless procession of soldiers and sailors with stretchers bearing the wounded filed past, and the rattle of the gay little painted Sicilian carts heaped with the dead never ceased as the long line moved towards the huge funeral pyre. The fumes of the burning bodies reached them on board the “Taormina,” sickening but not discouraging the perfumed ladies of the court. There had been some doubt whether they would be ordered on shore to help in the hospitals under the rude tents, or whether the wounded would be brought on board. At last the order came clear and direct: “Prepare to receive the wounded on board.” After that no time was lost. The operating rooms were made ready, the long tables were cleared, the surgeons put on their white gowns, laid out their shining instruments, chose their assistants. When the forty nurses reported for duty one only among them all wore the uniform of a trained nurse, Phyllis Wood of the Buffalo General Hospital.

“I would have exchanged my title for hers,” Vera said, “and what would I not have given for her clinical thermometer, the only one on board!”

Later I saw and talked with Nurse Phyllis herself: “We had come in for the worst, for the wounded that were brought on board the ‘Taormina’ had been sotto le macerie for days,” she said. “They were suffering from intolerable thirst and hunger. Oh, the cries for water, the screams of pain, as the poor maimed creatures were brought on board in the arms of the soldiers and sailors. The first day I was detailed to do the dressing of the wounds; later I was ordered down into the hold to assist Dr. Guarneri, the chief surgeon, with the operations. Then my real work began. We worked at the rate of sixty operations a day, all sorts of settings, every conceivable fracture. There was no time to give anesthetics (indeed we had none to give), yet we hardly heard a murmur from these poor lips. We had two extemporized operating tables and two young doctors worked with me under Guarneri. Sometimes it seemed impossible to keep up with the work, to have the dressings and antiseptics ready; but Guarneri is a splendid surgeon, full of energy and enthusiasm, so calm and self-possessed that we worked under him unconscious of time or of fatigue; our hours were from six in the morning till one at night.”

There was work for doctors and nurses among the rescuers as well as among the rescued. Many of the brave soldiers and sailors, who had worked with splendid courage and devotion, died from gangrene caused by handling the decomposing bodies; the death of one of these heroes stands clear in the nurse’s memory. A young lieutenant of Bersaglieri was brought on board the “Taormina,” dying from a hemorrhage brought on by his tremendous exertions.

“He was conscious to the last,” the nurse said. “We had no time to undress him, so he lay in his uniform and we placed his sword beside him. He was only one of many who laid down their lives!”

“I had for my helper,” Nurse Phyllis went on, “a young Roman belle, not twenty years old, with no more knowledge of nursing than a baby. She stood up to her work like a veteran—it was not easy; no American girl of that sort could have done what she did.”

Those days on the “Taormina” were not easy days for the Red Cross ladies, but I do not think one of them would be willing to give up the experience they brought. Whatever else was lacking, on board the hospital ship they had splendid surgical skill, for the Italian surgeons are among the best in the world. In this dire emergency the national characteristic, the capacity of working on a spurt, came into play. Soon help came to the “Taormina” from the other ships already on the ground; one sent sterilized gauze, another sent bandages, a third medicines, a fourth a supply of vaseline.

“The English Jackies from a neighboring ship,” said Phyllis, “made and sent us a quantity of long white garments for our poor naked patients; they were very primitive, made of a long piece of white cloth with two seams and a hole for the head, but we were mighty glad to get them.”

How like the decent English this was; how I should have loved to see the dear sailors sitting on deck sewing the long seams!

While Vera was with the Red Cross at Messina, there was a rumor that the authorities had decided to destroy what was left of the city.

“Each day we heard a new report,” Vera said, “till we did not know what to believe. Your friend, the Avvocato Bonanno, brought us one of the most startling rumors. I remember his saying, ‘We count the dead by tens of thousands. How can they be decently buried, how can a pestilence be prevented? There is but one way to complete the destruction the earthquake has wrought. We should send away the few survivors, then let the warships bombard this vestige of a city till the last walls crumble, fall, and bury together the city and its dead.’”

. . . . . . . . . .

News from Taormina at last—the city, not the ship! Letters began to come to us in Rome from one and another of our people there, letters that gave us glimpses of their experiences and the work they were doing. My old friend Anne Lee of Boston wrote:

“I was wakened by the earthquake but not very much frightened at first. I did get up and go to the window to watch the sea. It was terrible to hear and most curious. Out in the bay there was a wide circle of whitish yellow light which stayed in one place; it looked like moonlight, but there was no moon, and it was round, not straight like the wake of a star. I could see the waves breaking high on the shore. In no time the poor contadini were coming out of their houses over on the hills with their lanterns; they looked like Will o’ the wisps; they were hurrying over to the town for protection. The big quaking lasted forty seconds, but we had small ones all day. The town was in a panic; men, women, and children ran out into the streets without anything on, or trying to struggle into their clothes. Some of their shirts were upside down; all were screaming with fright. They crowded into the churches by hundreds. At eight I heard music; I went to the window and saw a procession marching down the narrow street that runs along by the old Roman wall. First came the Misericordia, dressed in white with red shoulder capes carrying lighted candles. On a paso was San Pancrazio dressed as a bishop, with two rows of candles burning before him. As soon as they were in sight of the sea they stopped and cried out a prayer and waved their hands towards the sea; they went on again to the end of the street, waving towards Etna standing against the blue sky like a great white pyramid with a mass of new fallen snow on the summit. It was glorious. The band was playing a slow muffled march, the other instruments stopping while the muffled drum carried on the time with slow steady taps. Before San Pancrazio walked the Archpriest with his two assistants carrying lighted candles, then came the great crowd of men, women and children, the white Carmelite nuns, and the yellow and red handkerchiefs of the peasants making spots of color in the dark mass; they were all so terrified and earnest looking! They took San Pancrazio from his own church to the cathedral to wait and protect them for a while until Saint Peter could be brought to join him. About five o’clock in the afternoon they brought Saint Peter with the same sort of procession, only more people, and placed the two cousins opposite each other in the cathedral. At the mass the church was packed with people kissing their hands and crossing themselves when they passed the statues. My poor old cook Venera spent most of the day on her knees. Down at the little town of Giardini there was a cloudburst a few weeks before the earthquake. Some of the houses were entirely crushed or buried. After the earthquake a fearful tidal wave took the water out to sea over twenty feet, then it rushed back and inundated the town, breaking and spoiling all that the deluge had spared and sweeping the fishing boats out to sea. Before the quake the people in Giardini saw two flashes of lightning; they saw a great fiery dragon pass over towards Calabria, and queer little dancing light spots as if the water were boiling.

“Since Tuesday all the English and Americans and a few Sicilians have been working night and day down at the station, feeding and watering the sick, wounded, and dying on the endless trains passing through from Messina to Catania. Many refugees have been left here; one woman gave birth to a dear little boy at the station. The American and English are organizing committees to help the sick and wounded who remain here in Taormina. Miss Swan and I are on the cooking committee; we go Wednesdays and Fridays and tend the cooking of a great kettle of pasta, or beans, or rice. Some take the food home; others eat it in the old deserted church near the clock tower, that used to be used as a school. We give them cheese, wine, and clothing—some of them have never before been so well fed or clothed. Many grumbled because they did not have meat, and didn’t like their clothes—they are already sadly spoiled. The news was brought by a sailor who walked from Messina; he told us that Messina was destroyed and thousands killed. Mr. Wood went over Tuesday morning to see if he could find Mr. and Mrs. Cheney. The great palace where they lived was a mass of rubbish. He could look into what had been their parlor and just see a corner of a piece of their beautiful antique furniture, a mirror still hanging on the wall, one of the yellow damask silk curtains hanging out of the window. When they found the dear little woman they only recognized her by the locket she always wore.”

The Cheneys had spent Christmas at Palermo, where their friends had urged them to stay longer, but they had felt obliged to return to Messina.

“As the trains came into the station the first cry was ‘Water, water.’ Six hundred or more were put off here at Taormina. We went down to the station at ten, worked there all day and did not get home till eleven or twelve at night. There were five or six trains during the day and as many during the night. The first week was the hardest work and kept us all jumping. In a few days we got settled and organized into committees. There were about three groups all working for the same thing, but each head was afraid some other head would get the greater credit and praise. Truth is, we were all working for humanity, to try and give the poor scared hungry souls food and drink and homes; it didn’t matter whether it was A, B or C; they all did splendid work and all worked with all their souls, and every one, including the Sicilian ladies and people from Russia, Germany, Austria and France, was only too glad to help. We gave away over three hundred loaves of bread a day, crackers, oranges, cooked polenta, everything that could be found to eat, milk, water and wine, all paid for by the forestieri, and a few of the townspeople. They were so much dazed for the most that it took them ten days to ‘come to.’ So many had lost friends that at first they could think of nothing else, and some were perfectly willing to stand by and let the strangers do the work. The first official action of the town authorities was on the eleventh day. I looked up from boiling some coffee for a train that was coming, and there stood the Mayor and two or three other short fat fathers of the town all talking at the tops of their voices, their hands and arms going in every direction. They were perfectly purple in the face and looked like so many bantam cocks ready to tear each other to pieces. I asked what the matter was?

“The Mayor and the municipality had come down to forbid any more bread or food being given away; there would be a bread famine, a wheat famine; we were taking the bread out of the mouths of the Taorminesi, and soon there would be a mob and the people would break into our houses. We had on hand three hundred loaves of bread bought, paid for, and broken up. In spite of the city fathers the bread was given to the refugees on the next train. Then there was a rumor that the milk had given out. Just before I reached the station that day I met three men driving a herd of twenty goats; they had escaped with their goats from Messina. The milk was bargained for and fifteen quarts, good and fresh, was milked from the goats and paid for by some Boston girls.”

A young lady, whose name is I think Miss Fernald, wrote the following story of what she saw at that station of Giardini to her brother:

“The first train from Messina. Oh, George, you can never imagine the horror of that first train! It squirmed through the tunnel like an injured worm, and stopped at our station crammed jammed with dying, crushed and bleeding humanity, leaving a trail of human blood as it wound its way from Messina. We had provided ourselves with bandages, brandy, wine, bread, milk. As soon as the train stopped we rushed to the windows and doors with our supplies. I shall never forget the roar of this groaning humanity wildly screaming for water and doctors. People were dying every moment, stretcher after stretcher was brought in and gently laid down in the station. Dr. and Mrs. Dashwood (English residents of Taormina) were angels in the work of rescue; they brought four babies into the world at the station. We turned the place into a hospital in the twinkling of an eye; soon the building was packed with the injured and dying. Delirious women, women gone mad from fright, wounded children, and gentlemen, so patient and grateful. It made my heart ache to hear their humble thanks for what was being done to comfort them. One train we entered had a basket with twelve or fifteen babies, five of whom had died on the way from Messina. The hour’s journey had taken nine hours because of the many washouts. One beautiful young lady, who, no one knew, died at the station; they called her ‘a princess.’ Every person from the villas went down with huge supplies of food. There was hot soup and cocoa, besides bread and fruit. We girls spent three nights and three days at the station and saved many lives by giving nourishment and what comfort was possible to half naked and starving people. The trains returning to Messina were crowded with people looking for their families, and also with a bad set of thieves. We have a regiment now at the station and soldiers all along the beach to Messina. Any one seen in the ruined city without a passport is shot on sight. Our new year’s eve was spent resting on sacks of figs at the station, administering to and comforting the poor crazed women and children, and waiting for the next train. I can’t write of the effect of this dreadful spectacle. Now things are more systematic as regards our work. It was my duty to go about and find the poor wretches who had wandered into Taormina. I found in one church five sisters who had found their way with great difficulty from Messina. The distance is nearly thirty miles. They were thinly clad and in a starving condition. The natives here have responded to the call fairly well and clothes have come in—but such rags. However, new ones are being made and distributed as fast as possible. The Prince of Cherami of the San Domenico is doing wonderful work as well as the villa people. All the visitors have fled from Taormina, the hotels are entirely deserted and will of course be closed. At the station I saw a woman with a cage of twelve birds; she had lost all her five children. We have felt shocks for five days. Most of the villa people are trembling with fear. What is to be done with these homeless wretched people? God only knows. It’s over a week now since the earthquake; the trains still come in filled to overflowing with injured taken every day from the ruins.”

“The German battle-ship ‘Serapim,’” says Miss Lee, “brought a great number of refugees. One music hall singer had her little canary on her finger; the little creature was singing, the only happy thing on that dreadful ship. I worked for over three weeks at the station of Giardini. One night Mr. Kitson was going through the Red Cross car, helping with milk, wine and so forth. At the end of the car was a large clothes basket full of little new-born babies, two dead, three or five alive, and nothing to cover them or keep them warm, so the dead ones had been kept for that. They had been born on the train and had had no one to tend them, poor little souls. It made him perfectly sick and was, we think, partly responsible for his long illness. I was kept in the surgical ward room to have the water ready for the doctors and so I did not see all the horrors as those did who went through the cars—I was spared that, thank God.”

On the first of January, three days after the great earthquake, a band of Calabrians, living in New York, flashed this message across the Atlantic to their mother country:

“Do not forget Scylla!”

Scylla, how the old name thrills! Scylla had suffered severely, though its gray castle, perched high on the cliff that rises sheer from the shore, was spared. Scylla, the ancient village at the foot of the purple Calabrian mountains, was not forgotten, nor Reggio, nor the white fishing hamlets that line the tawny shores of Sicily and Calabria on either side of the restless straits. The people of the coast were soonest reached and soonest helped by the sailors of the passing ships, for the navies of the world flew on the wings of love and pity to succor the stricken ports. Never were ships watched for with such eagerness, never were sailors greeted with such passionate rapture since Theseus sailed back from Crete to Athens with his precious freight of Athenian youths and maidens, saved from the dreadful Minotaur. The people who lived in the hills and valleys of the interior suffered longest, were last relieved; but even to them help came, for the sailors were faithful and carried the world’s bounty to the desolate inland towns of Sicily and Calabria. The story of their labor of love would fill an encyclopedia. This is the story of the American relief ship “Bayern,” that brought comfort and hope to the forlorn survivors of the great earthquake; to tell the story clearly, we must go back to Rome where the cruise was planned.

Saturday afternoon, January second, the Via Quattro Fontane, in the neighborhood of the American Embassy, was crowded with carriages, cabs and automobiles. The tall handsome porter of the Palazzo del Drago was on duty in full dress; he wore a long broadcloth overcoat that came down to his feet, a black cocked hat with a cockade of red, white and blue. His mighty staff of office, a certain grand air he has, make him a formidable personage to those who have no real business at the palace. Once you are known to this Cerberus, he has no terrors for you; he is gentle by nature as such big men so often are.

“Can I see the Ambassador?” I asked the porter.

“That I cannot promise, lady. He has just returned from the Quirinal; there are many persons waiting to see him, but—” he raised his shoulders with the Latin gesture that expresses doubt—“who knows? The Signora can but try.” He stood back, made me a splendid bow with as fine a flourish of his tricorne as if I had been a princess, and the way was free. I entered the handsome portone, walked through the long marble gallery, past the courtyard where the noise of the fountain sounds like the trampling of impatient steeds, past the twin lions of giallo antico that guard the entrance, and up the magnificent stairway leading to the piano nobile, the home of the American Ambassador. At the door of the apartment I was met by another of those prodigious serving men—the giants of the American Embassy were the talk of Rome that winter—they were recruited from the ex-cuirassiers of the King’s own body guard, the glorious hundred, the shortest of whom is six feet tall.

“Her Excellency would receive me; as to his Excellency, it was just possible. The ladies were in the dancing hall.” He waved me towards the mirrored gallery. I paused a moment to stare about the great anticamera, big enough to hold an ordinary embassy. At one end there is a wide fireplace, over which, instead of armorial bearings, our Eagle spreads its mighty sheltering wings. This splendid anticamera was in strange confusion, crowded with packing cases, piled half-way to the ceiling with bales of goods, boxes of clothing, boots, food, medicines, relief supplies of all kinds. Every able-bodied American in Rome was working pro Sicilia e Calabria, and the Ambassador’s home was not only the nerve-center of the relief work but a warehouse, a base of supplies.

From the ballroom came the sound of women’s voices, the snip-snip of shears, the click of sewing machines. Here was another transformation; the sumptuous ballroom with the smooth polished floor had become a busy workroom. Under the gilt chandelier stood a long table, heaped with bales of flannel and cloth, over which leaned four or five ladies, scissors in hand, cutting out skirts, blouses and jackets. On the satin-covered benches sat a bevy of young women and girls, basting, sewing, planning, and chatting as they worked.

“I have nothing left but red flannel,” said the chief cutter-out, “what shall I do with it?”

“Petticoats and under jackets,” said the Doctor’s wife. “We must put all the colored goods into under-clothing. The poor things beg so for black dresses. You wouldn’t want to wear red or blue if you had lost twenty-five members of your family, as my profughi have.”

“Still we must use what material we have. Let us keep the black for our profughi here in Rome and send the colored things down there where the need is greater and they cannot be so particular.”

The scene was typical of Rome, of Italy, of the civilized world at that time. In every home, rich or poor, in every country, women of all classes were sewing for those naked wretches who had escaped from the great earthquake with nothing but their lives. In the Palace of the Quirinal the little princesses, Jolanda and Mafalda, sat up in their high chairs, stitching busily for the children of the stricken South. The fury of benevolence that had driven men and women all over the world into some action, some sacrifice, for their suffering brothers, was being organized, had become the great driving force that should compel some sort of order out of chaos unparalleled. When it grew too dark to see in the ballroom the friendly giant lighted the chandelier and the candles in the gilt sconces. As he passed me he murmured:

“If the Signora can wait till the other ladies have gone her Excellency—“

“Of course I can wait.” I settled down to overcast the seams of a black woolen frock.

“Do you know where one can buy handkerchiefs?” asked the chief cutter-out. “Every shop I tried today was sold out. All Sicilians use handkerchiefs, even the poorest; it’s one of their good points. I was at the station this morning helping the English Committee—they meet every train from Naples that brings ‘survivors,’ and fit out the poor things with shoes and clothes. Some of them were half naked; one pretty girl—a perfect Hebe—was dressed in an officer’s uniform. The poor souls cry so one has to give them one’s own handkerchief; I have hardly one left!”

“Ask the Ambassadress; she knows more about what’s left in Rome than anybody,” said the Doctor’s wife. Then in an undertone to me: “It’s wonderful how she takes the lead and the rest of us all fall in line; she makes us lose sight of the woman in the Ambassadress; she’s taken command of the scattered forces of the colony like a generalissimo; she’s proclaimed an armistice to internecine strife. Look at those two women, the lamb and the wolf cutting out together; it took the earthquake and Mrs. Griscom to bring that about!”

“Time to go home,” said the chief cutter-out, as the cracked bells of San Bernardo’s rang six. “My hands ache with the weight of these shears; this is the best day’s work we have done.”

One by one, the ladies, colonials and transients, fashionable and unfashionable, took their leave. When all had gone, the giant ushered me into the yellow drawing-room, where I found her Excellency seated in a low chair before the fire making tea. She greeted me with her flashing smile and bade me welcome.

I asked for news of those who had gone down to the city of the dreadful night; we had heard nothing of Major Landis, Mr. Cutting, Mr. Chanler and the others who had gone to Messina the Thursday before.

“No news—but from home, oh, so much! It is as we all knew it would be; we shall do our share.”

Rumor already had it that great sums of money had been cabled from America, both to the Ambassador and to the Italian Red Cross. If that money was to be well spent, the Ambassador’s work was cut out for him, as hard work as even he could covet.

A few moments later Mr. Griscom came in and asked his wife for a cup of tea. His Excellency’s dark inscrutable face showed fatigue; the veiled fire of the eyes was nearer the surface than usual, the clear-cut lips were compressed. As the Doctor’s wife said, it was fortunate for us that we had these strong young people to take the lead in the American relief work. From the first they bore the brunt gallantly; work as hard as their helpers might, they out-stripped all others, gave with a lavish hand, power, sympathy, wit, energy, health; in a word they gave themselves. We turned to them as to our natural leaders in all large and even in small questions. It had seemed to me the most natural thing in the world that, having given away all our available cash and all the clothes we could spare, I should go to the Embassy to beg for my profughi, the family of Francesco Calabresi, the plumber from Messina.

“You have received large sums of money from home,” I said to Mr. Griscom.

“Yes,” he looked at me steadily, ready to guard the treasure from the most desperate assault. He listened patiently to my story of the Calabresi family, to my plea for money to buy clothes and a cradle for the imminent baby, and plumber’s tools to set Francesco up in business before he should become demoralized by the dreadful Roman system of paying so much per capita every day to each family of profughi, without demanding any work in return for the money. First to lose everything they owned, then to be robbed of their habit of self-dependence was the cruel fate of too many.

“We must help these poor people to help themselves,” said the Ambassador, sounding the key-note of the American relief work from first to last. Then very kindly he pointed out to me that my interest in an individual case made me lose sight of the fact that he must deal with the situation as a whole. The American funds must be distributed with method and exactness; the generous help our country was sending must be well spent; his work was to lay out the general scheme, the detail was for others; he had appointed an American Relief Committee; they had held their first meeting that morning.

I saw it all then in a flash, got a sense of some great plan maturing, and took my leave, mortified enough that I should have troubled the god-in-the-machine with a mere detail.

The next day, Sunday, was like a poem bound in blue and gold. I went up on the terrace to gather the last chrysanthemums that had escaped the frost, and to loosen the soil about the first hyacinth, whose close-furled pointed leaves pricked through the brown mould. Below the Tiber rolled, a tawny flood, under the arches of the Ponte Margherita. Across the river the angel of the Castel Sant’ Angelo lifted his bronze sword over the tomb of Hadrian, the dome of St. Peter’s showed like a pale blue bubble against the deeper blue of the sky; the bells of Rome rocked and pealed in their towers, calling the people to mass. From the barracks in the Prati di Castello the bugles sounded, and a regiment swung down the white road by the Tiber, past the statue of Ciceruácchio, and over the bridge to the gay music of the royal march. I was leaning over the parapet to watch the soldiers out of sight, when Agnese called me downstairs.

“A messenger from the Embassy, Signora, with a bundle so large we had to open both sides of the portone to let it pass!”

I hurried down in time to thank the good-natured giant for the gigantic parcel he had brought. Agnese cut the strings and handed me a card with a line in pencil signed Elizabeth Griscom.

“Signora, it is a cradle but of an unimaginable fineness! Observe the pillow case, it is of linen. This is a blanket for a queen’s son; and these garments, truly they are fit for a queen’s children, no less! They doubtless belonged to that small angel with the eyes of his beautiful mother, whom I saw when I took a letter to the Ambassadress? Consider, Signora, are these magnificences fitting for the infant of a plumber? Madonna mia! It is turning to their account this business of the earthquake! This dress, it is quite new; you yourself could wear it—the color would suit you, or we could have it dyed a dark purple.”

What the Ambassador could not do, the Ambassadress had done. Besides the dainty cradle, the blankets, jackets and other baby luxuries such as neither Lucia nor Agnese had ever dreamed of, there was a little knitted shawl for poor old Rosina, and good warm dresses for the plumber’s wife and mother. Agnese was right; the pretty baby finery belonged to the little son born to the Ambassador during his first months of office in Rome. There is a story that the King, on being told that Mrs. Griscom could not be present at some official reception on account of her baby, exclaimed in astonishment:

“I never before have heard of an Ambassadress with a baby!”

The time had come when the King, the colony, all concerned were thankful that the American Ambassador and Ambassadress were young people, with strong young nerves and generous young hearts.

“Send for Napoleone,” I cried to Agnese. Napoleone the cabman can only be reached through the connivance of a clerk of Fasani, the grocer in the Piazza de Spagna. Napoleone is very “black” and has the superior manners of the “clericals.”

By the time I had my bonnet on, Agnese announced to me that Napoleone was at the door. When we appeared on the sidewalk he was deep in the Popolo Romano, the Vatican organ which he reads so faithfully that J. says he often loses a fare from being too much engrossed in his newspaper.

“To the house in the Via Lamarmora where you took me the other day to visit those unfortunate profughi,” I said.

“It appears to me, Signora, that they have become very fortunate people,” said Napoleone, making room for the cradle beside him. He whipped up his strawberry roan, a horse with an action like a crab’s, as unique a figure in our Rome as his driver. Napoleone’s eyes were very kind when he helped me out with the cradle and the big bundle of clothes.

“I will wait for you, Signora, at my own cost, one understands. Diamini! we must all do something for these unfortunate profughi.” Napoleone smoothed out the Popolo Romano, put a nosebag of fodder over the roan’s head and prepared to wait for me, at his own expense!

When the porter’s wife looked out from her little den and saw the big bundle, she put down the dish of carciofi she was preparing for her husband’s dinner and came to the rescue.

“Per carità, Signora, allow me to carry up that great big bundle; ask the padrona to leave the door open till I come.”

The padrona di casa was smartly dressed and freshly powdered. She wore huge pearl and diamond peasant earrings, and her wonderful hair with its thick regular waves shone like the plumage of the black swan in the Villa Borghese. She recognized me with a smile. “Ah, the American lady! What a pleasure to see her again!” She motioned me to the room where the theatrical costumes had been packed closely together to give more space. The light from a big window struck across the gaunt barn of a place and fell on a group in the center that Andrea del Sarto would have painted as a “Visitation.”

Rosina, the wrinkled old woman, looked a perfect Elizabeth as she stood there, holding her daughter-in-law by the hand: Lucia would have made a lovely Mary. The young woman saw me first. She came towards me slowly, heavily, took my hand in hers and with a strange solemnity kissed me on the mouth; Francesco, her husband (the plumber), followed her example. Caterina, sitting up in the big white bed, smiled at me with a radiant inner lighting of the face, like a young martyr. Rosina mumbled my hand with her withered lips and wiped her eyes upon a black-bordered handkerchief I had given her; all this was before they caught a glimpse of the porter’s wife, toiling upstairs with the gigantic bundle.

I was the first stranger who had come into the new life that was opening before them, after they had passed through that hell of suffering at Messina. The shackles of convention had dropped from them in that elemental experience, that fearful convulsion when the very earth had stoned them. They met me as equals on the ground of our common humanity; they embraced me because I had brought them help from America, the land of hope. When we grow old, I heard a poet say, we count the treasure of unforgotten kisses as a miser counts his gold; In the coming years those kisses, given for my country’s sake, will shine bright in my imperishable hoard.

The next day, Monday morning, January 4th, as we were having early coffee, Agnese brought in a note.

“Anything interesting?” I asked, as J. folded the small sheet of lilac paper and put it back in the envelope. “It looks like an invitation.”

“It is,” said J., “one I shall accept.”

I must have looked incredulous, for he handed me the note. It was from one of the ladies of the Embassy, who wrote to say that volunteers were wanted for a relief ship the American Committee was fitting out. This was the first we either of us heard of the expedition of the “Bayern,” that a few days later thrilled all Italy and America. Ten minutes later we were in Napoleone’s cab, rattling through the Piazza San Bernardo. As we passed the Hotel Europa our friend, Mr. Samuel Parrish, came out of the door. Mr. Parrish, a distinguished New York lawyer, had come to Rome to pass a quiet winter, to improve his knowledge of the language and to study Italian “primitives.” It seemed rather early for him to be about, though I found a possible explanation for this as we passed the flower-stand of the Piazza Mignianelli, brave with deep purple violets and pale winter roses. The early birds get the best of everything; the sunny salon at the Europa, where our friend proposed spending the easy restful days of his “season off,” was always filled with lovely flowers—yes, that was it, Mr. Parrish had come out at this unearthly hour to buy his flowers.

In the Piazza Barberini, where a brisk wind blew the spray of the fountain of the Triton half across the square, we passed Mr. William Hooper of Boston, hurrying along; Mr. Hooper had arrived in Rome a few weeks before with his wife and was established for the winter in the Hotel Regina.

At the office of the American Embassy we were received by the smiling usher, who showed us into the waiting room, threw a lump of soft coal on the fire, and smiled himself out. Shortly after one of the habitues of the Embassy, a Roman American, came in and told us a meeting of the American Relief Committee was going on at the Palazzo del Drago; if we could wait, they were all sure to come round to the office when it was over.

“They have two or three meetings a day,” the Roman American said; “they were up half last night. What with sending and receiving cables from America, holding consultations with the King, Giolitti (the Prime Minister) and Nathan the Sindaco, those men don’t have time to eat or to sleep.”

At last Mr. Griscom came in, passing directly to his private office; a little later Mr. Parrish and Mr. Hooper followed him. Through the open door I caught a glimpse of the Ambassador at his desk, talking with Mr. Nelson Gay and Mr. George Page, both American residents of Rome. These five gentlemen were the Relief Committee, there was only one stranger to us in the group; the naval attaché of the Embassy, Lieutenant-Commander Reginald Rowan Belknap. As we waited in the reception room, most of the American men in Rome passed through; first one, then another of the committee or of the secretaries came in to speak to some visitor. We could not but hear scraps of their conversation as they passed to and fro.

“Griscom couldn’t have chosen his committee better: Parrish and Hooper to help him raise the money in America; Page and Gay to help him spend it; and Belknap—one sees with half an eye he’s a man for an emergency,” said a visitor.

“Of course we shall get the money; I am ready to guarantee it!” exclaimed the treasurer of the committee.

“Parrish is head of the Southampton Red Cross. He has cabled the President,” murmured another.

“The steamer will start from Genoa. Smith, our Consul, is buying up the town to fit her out,” said a young secretary.

“The Ambassadress has collected half a shipload of supplies!”

“All the sterilized milk you can lay your hands on—” This to one who offered contributions.

“Put my money in tobacco; those poor devils need a smoke if ever man did,” said the Roman American.

Waiting in that office was like watching the movement of a vast engine, feeling the throbbing of our country’s mighty heart—our pulses leapt to keep time with it.

“Weston Flint is just the man for you. He is a graduate of our school and speaks Italian well,” said Mr. Carter, director of the American Classical School.

“If you can get Giordano of the Tribuna, he’s your man. He speaks English as well as I do,” said a journalist.

“I know three trained nurses who are ready to go if they’re wanted.”

At last our turn came; Captain Belknap found time to speak to J. The intense concentrated force that we had felt in the atmosphere of that room seemed personified in the naval attaché. To be in his company was like touching an electric battery. Only a few words were exchanged; the upshot of it all was that J. offered his services and was accepted. He said he was ready to go in any capacity, and was then and there appointed interpreter and general handy-andy-man to the expedition. My services were refused; no women except professional trained nurses were wanted.

“Do you know a man with some knowledge of accounts you could get to go with us? He must speak Italian.” Captain Belknap said it lightly enough, as if he were merely dropping a hint. What was it that made that hint more imperative than a command?

“I will try to find one,” said J. As we walked out of the Embassy he exclaimed, “Thompson is our man! This is a sort of press-gang business; we had better drop down on him at once.”

We hurried to the studio in the Via Degli Artisti, where we found Wilfred Thompson at work on his decoration for the English church. After the tense atmosphere of the embassy the studio seemed strangely peaceful. On the easel was a picture, still wet, of the pine trees in the Villa Borghese, with the red sunset light striking between their smooth stems. A little cat rubbed its arched back against my dress purring her friendly song of welcome, “three thrums, three thrums.” We felt like conspirators come to break up our friend’s quiet life. He listened gravely to the proposition that he should volunteer for the relief ship, and took time to consider it. In one sense it was not difficult for him to go, he said; he only had to find a home for the kitten, and, as a lesser consideration, to make a will. The words struck chill; there was danger then! In the end Thompson decided to go; he spoke without enthusiasm; it was evident that having been called upon he felt it his duty to go. His mood was in strong contrast to the enthusiasm of those men at the Embassy; they were on the circuit of the Great Dynamo, they throbbed with the thrill of it, glowed with the Niagara-like power of it. Tuesday morning Thompson offered his services to Captain Belknap. When we met him that afternoon, we knew that he too had come within the magnetic circle, had felt the thrill of the Great Dynamo, for from that time on he toiled like the others with heart and soul, with nerves and body doing double, triple work.

“Thompson’s got the pace,” said J., “a jolly good one too.”

A man may not choose how he shall serve the great Republic, but whatever service is asked of him, that let him render with heart and soul. Though Thompson would not have chosen the post of supercargo—any more than Flint would have asked to be cashier or J. interpreter—once it was assigned him, he threw himself into the work with all his might. The studio saw him no more; the little cat—all the family he had—missed him. He spent his days and most of his nights trying to bring order out of that chaos of supplies, checking bills, making lists and invoices of clothes, food, medicine, tools, all the wonderful things bought for the relief ship. The cargo was got together somehow, anyhow; the thing was done—that was the main point. From morning till night those tireless men and women bought and bought, sewed and sewed, packed and tied up in bundles the stores, clothing, shoes, medicines, for the sufferers. It was Thompson’s duty to try and bring some sort of order out of that chaos. When men and women are dying of cold and hunger, when human life is at stake and the race is with death, haste is the only thing to strive for; waste counts not. So Griscom and his Americans resolutely cut the Gordian knots of red tape that strangle Italy, whenever they came across one, and never counted the cost.

Now that we look back, what they did seems incredible. Remember, it was Sunday morning, January 3rd, that the Ambassador appointed his committee to help him put through the thing he had planned to do; the work of the next three days would not be believed if it could be told. From the beginning Griscom did the impossible—the only thing worth doing in this world. He was told that the idea of fitting out a relief ship was chimerical; every available steamer was already engaged by the Italian Government. Even if a ship could be found, where would the supplies come from? The Roman shops were well nigh sold out. If ship and cargo could be scared up, how to get the cargo to the ship? It took a month to get a box from Rome to Naples! This last argument seemed final!

Every objection was met, every obstacle overcome. In three days the ship was found, the cargo bought, the men and women of the relief crew enlisted, ready, eager to start. Monday Captain Belknap engaged the Austrian Lloyd steamer “Oceania;” she could be ready to sail in nine days. Monday night the North German Lloyd’s agent telephoned, offering the “Bayern” to be ready to sail from Genoa Wednesday, January 6th. This was a saving of six days; the offer of the “Bayern” was accepted, the Austrians handsomely refusing to claim the forfeit of one thousand dollars due them for breach of contract. Who says corporations have no heart? The committee knew they could count on the Germans to do what they undertook to do. The discipline, the steady hammer-hammer of the army drill master has got into the very blood and bones of that nation.

So the ship was found!

As for the cargo: when the committee was not in session, William Hooper, the famous Harvard athlete, Samuel Parrish, the connoisseur of Italian Cinque Cento, Nelson Gay, the historian, George Page, the banker, were working under the lash, buying coats, blankets, shawls, pins, needles, biscuits, cheese, sausages, picks, shovels—all they could lay hands on of these grave-digger’s tools, for still on the eighth, the tenth day after the earthquake, even later, men and women were taken out alive from the ruins. In Genoa, James Smith, American Consul, was gathering together a vast store of hams, beans, potatoes, salt pork, rope, canvas, candles, all the ship wares to be found in the great seaport. It was one thing to put these goods bought in Genoa on board the “Bayern,” but how to get the masses of clothing, tools, food, medicines and bedding, purchased in Rome—a tithe of which cumbered the great hall of the Palazzo del Drago—to the ship?

“If the railroad to the south cannot take the goods to Naples, the railroad to the north shall take them to Civitavecchia; the old papal seaport is as good a place to sail from as from Naples!” Griscom argued; so that knot was cut.

Stein, the shipper, was called in, another of those busy silent Germans who year by year are getting more and more of Italy’s commerce into their strong capable hands. Stein undertook to have the cargo at Civitavecchia on the “Bayern’s” arrival there, and he was as good as his word. The Government gave free transportation to the goods.

Reports are dull reading, statistics worse—there is nothing quite so misleading as statistics—there are a few exceptions to this rule; the reports of the American Relief Committee are among them. The minutes kept by Samuel Parrish lie before me; they are as interesting as a novel. As interesting? Twenty thousand times more interesting. The story is told gravely and concisely, but the romance shines through the conventional terms, transfigures the formal statements; it has the life pulse of an old Greek drama; it moves with the inevitable sequence of history. The titles of Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, are disguises like the masks worn by the Athenian players. They serve to hide the personality of the actor, leaving him freer to play the role for which he is cast. The characters speak their lines, the play moves steadily from the first lurid scene of the earthquake to the final chorus of Hope. After Nature had done her worst and the greatest disaster of history had stunned the world, the network of nerves with which America has enmeshed the globe, the telegraph wires and submarine cables, flashed the dreadful intelligence from nerve center to nerve center. Whether for good or for ill, we gave the world its nervous system; ours the responsibility for the quickened pulse of life! The cables were kept busy; message after message flashed from the Embassy at Rome to Washington, to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco. That cry of the Calabrian exiles: “Do not forget to help Scylla,” touched the public imagination. I hear the thrill of it in all the messages that follow, the committee’s appeal to the American Red Cross, to the Governors of the States, to the people of America. The Ambassador and Mr. Parrish telegraph the President, Mr. Parish cables Governor Hughes and Mayor McClellan, Mr. Hooper calls on Governor Guild of Massachusetts for funds for a relief ship. Time is so precious they do not wait for answers; strong in their faith in America’s generosity, these men assume a personal responsibility for the great sums of money needed, so no time is lost in waiting for answers to their appeals. This is the secret of how the incredible thing was done; it was not only by the labor of these resolute men but by the faith that was in them that the country would “back” them, would make good all they promised.

“Theirs,” said the Roman American, “is an infallibility absolute as the Pope’s; they know that God and the American people are behind them!”

We were in Athol’s library Wednesday evening when J.’s sailing orders came. The large pleasant room was just light and warm enough. There was a wood fire, there were flowers—blood-red Roman anemones—there were books and pictures, there was Athol himself (the man of whose mellow culture and sensitive taste, the room was an expression) seated in a beautiful Savonarola chair at an ancient, perfectly appointed table, writing despatches with pen and ink on large foolscap paper.

“They have telephoned from the Embassy,” said Agnese, who brought the news, “that the Signore should be at the station at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. The Signora is invited to go as far as Civitavecchia with the Ambassadress and the other ladies to witness his departure—ah! sainted apostles! for that land of death!” Agnese disapproved of J.’s going down to Messina. “Give those unfortunates anything in reason,” she argued, “clothes, food, even a little money! But to go oneself, or even to allow one who is dear to go down to that—that pozzo d’infezione, ah! no, there is no reason in that! It is the act of the mad. Mama mia! Are there not enough dead already?”

“You will be too late for Messina,” said Athol, looking up from his despatches. “They don’t like having foreigners about; the English ships from Malta were there a week ago but they found they were not wanted! You will find more than enough to do at the smaller villages; they have been neglected. Have you any flannel shirts?”

“Hundreds,” said J.

“For the profughi, yes, but for yourself? You’ll need them and flannel collars; I can lend you some and a hold-all. Have you seen the last subscriptions to the Lord Mayor’s Fund?” He handed J. a London paper with the list of subscribers to the English Earthquake Fund. There was a generous rivalry of “who shall give and do most?” between the Americans and English that was heart-warming.

“You deserve a large share of the credit for this,” J. said; “I hope it will be set down to your account.”

Athol’s telegrams and articles were read by English-speaking people all over the world; they had great influence in raising the Mansion House Fund, and other contributions.

The next morning was gray and mild, a depressing sirocco day. Napoleone who drove us to the station was gloomy as Agnese about J.’s going to Messina. His clerical sympathies made him scoff at the value of all lay relief work.

“Those afflictions that are sent by the Padre Eterno can best be assuaged by the Church,” he grumbled, as he put Athol’s fine English hold-all on the box beside him. Even the strawberry roan was out of spirits and took ten minutes longer than usual between the palace and the station. “What has his Excellency to do with such matters?” Napoleone flung the words over his shoulder. “I tell you frankly, Signora mia, his life is worth more than all the Sicilians put together. It is a pity the island of Sicily did not sink beneath the sea and remain there twenty minutes, long enough to drown all the inhabitants. It would have been a good thing for Italy, magari, and for the rest of the world!”

Wilfred Thompson, who was at the station when we arrived, introduced Weston Flint, the cashier. Mr. Flint wore a leather money bag over his shoulder.

“Ask for the special,” said Flint, as he wrote our names down on a list; “the Government has put a train at the Ambassador’s disposal; they treat us handsomely, you see.”

“That young man came to Rome to study archeology,” said the Roman American, who was going with us. “He will learn more about ruins and excavation in the next few days than he could have learned at school in a lifetime.”

A cab drove up with three neat, plainly dressed, young girls.

“The American nurses, God bless them!” said the Roman American. “There come the English nurses; and there’s Robert Hale, the painter—why have they gone in so heavily for artistic talent?” Then answering his own question: “Because artists are the hardest working people in the world, and the most generous; they always do more than their share of good work; rich people give their money, they give themselves!”

Just then the Ambassador and Mrs. Griscom came up in their motor and we all got on board the train. The journey to Civitavecchia was all too short; we hardly found time to look from the window and were only half conscious of passing the ancient Temple of Minerva Medica, or Ponte Galera, the picturesque, fever-stricken, abandoned town hung in its green shroud of ivy. The artists missed nothing of the beauty of the trip (their search for beauty is as unconscious as breathing); the rest of us had to be forcibly wrenched from the discussion of medicated gauze and flannel bandages when a turn of the road brought a wonderful view before us,—the campagna swimming in an amethyst haze, the blue clear-cut lines of the Alban hills, and far off, a fainter blue stain against the sky, Monte Circeo, home of Circe, daughter of the sun. These things the sons of Mary saw, while the sons of Martha talked of ways and means.

What had been accomplished in the few days since that first meeting of the committee Sunday afternoon seemed a miracle. The men who had worked the miracle were with us, quiet, alert, full of attentions for the comfort of the ladies who were going to see the “Bayern” start on her cruise of mercy. The leader of the enterprise, Lloyd Griscom, and his right-hand man, Captain Belknap, who bore the brunt of all the great work that was to follow, talked together in undertones, discussing the final arrangements. Later Mr. Gay, Mr. Parrish and Mr. Page joined them. The rest of us kept apart, as it seemed they were holding an informal committee meeting, to decide some last weighty matter, and exchanged our news.

“Mr. Griscom saw the King,” said the Roman American, “and offered him the relief ship. The King accepted it and told the Ambassador that nothing could have been devised better than such a gift. The money for the expedition was given by the American Red Cross to Mr. Griscom to spend at his discretion.”

That was wise, for what was needed now even more than money was the good sense to spend it well, ability, organizing power—the thing that is so much harder to get or to give than money—brains!

At Civitavecchia we were received by the Sindaco, the Sub-Prefect, and the Captain of the Port; they all wore black gloves and crape bands on the arm. The general exaltation and excitement that ran like fire through Rome was lacking in the small provincial seaport; there was a sense of hopeless mourning here, more distressing than the tearing passion of Rome.

Two of our ladies disappeared as soon as we reached Civitavecchia. The rest of us, escorted by the officials, were rowed out in small boats to the “Bayern,” a fine steamer of 5000 tons, lying in the outer harbor surrounded by a fleet of lighters.

“Still taking on stores, you see,” said Mr. Stein, who had come in person to see that the goods from Rome were delivered on time. “By four o’clock everything will be on board; they will be able to start without delay.”

“This is Captain Miztloff,” said Belknap (how could he find time for everything?), presenting the big florid typical North-German-Lloyd commander.

“They tell me you shall not with us go?” said the captain. “It is a pity; we shall a moon and a fine weather have, and a good run to Messina make. Will you my quarters visit?”

His calm blue eyes, his smiling undismayed presence were comforting. Here was a man who had not been whirled out of his natural orbit like the rest of us. After we had gone over the “Bayern” with Captain Mitzloff, visited his cabin and admired the portraits of his wife and flaxen-haired children, the expedition began to look more rational, a little less out of the ordinary. His practical sober kindness was somehow reassuring. We went down to see J.’s cabin, an outer room with a good window. The familiar smell of stale sea-water brought a pang of homesickness—of course we were going to sail for America, there never had been any earthquake, it was all a bad nightmare; it was curious how the illusion persisted. It grew even stronger when a pink and white steward announced luncheon, and we made our way to the dining saloon, decorated and furnished in the usual North German Lloyd fashion. The chief steward allotted us our seats—oh, it was just like the beginning, of twenty other trans-atlantic crossings! I recognized the way the table was set, the napkins folded, the bread cut; we were going home—together.

“I shall order green goose and mirabellen—” I announced.

“You are to sit beside the Sindaco of Civitavecchia because you can talk Italian to him,” said one of the committee at that moment; the illusion vanished. I was placed with Mrs. Griscom and the other ladies of the Auxiliary Relief Committee at the captain’s table. J., already separated from me, sat with the nurses, and other assistants, Flint, Hale and Thompson, at the doctor’s table, below the salt as it were. He was under orders; discipline had begun.

Though we were all anxious and sad enough, there was a brave effort at gayety. The Ambassador proposed the health of the King and Queen of Italy in a neat little speech; and the Sindaco, a stout man with red eyes, responded with a toast to the President. He pronounced a few flowery sentences, and then speaking of the six or seven people from Civitavecchia who had escaped the earthquake and come back to their native town beggared and bereft, he faltered, burst into tears and sat down. After luncheon I found my way to the ladies’ saloon, all white and gold and blue brocade, with that faint dreadful under-smell of stale sea-water in its draperies, cushions and carpet. Here I found the nurses unrolling two bundles of stuff.

“You missed us,” said one of the ladies, “and wondered where we went from the station; this is what we were in search of.” She unrolled a piece of ivory-white flannel and another of scarlet cloth.

“Who can cut me out a neat cross? This is all lopsided,” said the chief cutter-out. She held up a badly cut cross of red cloth.

“I know who can make a better one than that,” I cried and went in search of J.

“We shall want a good many, for every one of them must wear the badge on his left arm,” said the chief cutter-out.

“We fly the Red Cross then? It has been arranged?”

The Ambassador had cut another strand of the red tape that strangles Italy. Permission to fly the Red Cross flag had been asked and refused because none of the party belonged to the Italian Society, though several were members of the American Association. When in order to overcome this objection the leaders asked leave to join the Italian Red Cross, the answer was that it would take two weeks for them to be elected. Mr. Griscom passed over the refusal and carried the request to a higher court, where it was granted.

My last impression of the “Bayern” was that scene in the saloon, where Thompson and J. stood patiently cutting out the red cloth crosses and the trained nurses sat stitching them neatly on the ivory cloth bands. At two o’clock Mrs. Griscom and the ladies of her auxiliary committee left the ship and took the train for Rome with Mr. Parrish and Mr. Page.

“Of course I wanted to go to Messina,” said Mr. Parrish, “but somebody had to stay in Rome to attend to this end of the business!”

At four o’clock the “Bayern” sailed,

Captain Belknap having commandeered three small craft against the need of landing on an open beach, for which the ship’s boats were unsuitable. As she sailed out of the harbor of Civitavecchia, past the old lighthouse with the two defending towers, the “Bayern” flew the American ensign at the fore, the German merchant flag aft, and between foremast and funnel on the triatic stay the flag of the whole Christian world, a cross vermilion on a ground white.

“It looks as if God had put His foot upon it!” said Hugh, the Yeoman. J., watching the pallid sunset from the deck of the “Bayern,” as she swung at anchor in the sickle-shaped harbor of Messina, turned from the sombre Sicilian mountains, rising tier above tier to the wet gray sky, and looked at what men called the “indispensable city” before God had set His foot upon it. The pile of smoking ruins, in some places tall as the wrecked buildings had originally been, in others crushed flat to the earth, looked indeed as if some mighty being had stamped his way with giant strides over the city; you could trace his footsteps in the shattered remnants of the great Sicilian seaport.

“Do you believe the earthquake was a judgment?” Hugh went on.

Gasperone, the Messinese, shook the rough mane of hair out of his eyes and parried the question with a “Chi lo sa?” Then he added: “It was foretold; I myself heard the prophecy, though at the time I laughed, with others who laugh no more. One of the hottest days of last summer a tall Nazarene, a hermit from the hills dressed in sackcloth, went up and down the city, followed by a boy—half naked like himself—ringing a great bell. There on the Marina they stopped at a cross street and the Nazarene cried out like one possessed:

“‘Be warned! Take heed and repent, ye of Messina! This year shall not end before your city is utterly destroyed!’”

“It was a wicked city,” said Hugh; “the Almighty smote this place. What else could ha’ done it? Our chart called for fifty fathom of water, we plumbed and plumbed—two hundred and fifty didn’t fetch it, the bottom had just dropped out. There’s Riggio ‘crost the straits, hit the same way—a double stroke you may say. When you see a city smote like that, you may know it was a wicked city; ’twas the same with ‘Frisco—she got what she deserved. Down to Callao centuries ago ‘twas the same. The people were fighting and killing each other, so the Almighty he shook down the town and out of the water a great high mountain riz right up in the air carrying a big ship as was lying in the harbor with it; I know folks as has seen it! They put an immense cross on the spot; the kings or presidents or whatever there is down there, swore that until that cross was pulled down they would never fight no more. Whenever they’re like to quarrel, some one points to that cross, and then they manage to settle the row without bloodshed!”

“Awe ri’,” said Gasperone.

“They say a vile piece of poetry was printed in an infidel paper, asking our Saviour to prove He could work miracles by sending a good earthquake—is that true?”

Gasperone spat over the side and nodded; then he too prophesied.

“There is more to come.” Gasperone shook a warning finger: “Listen! la Sicilia will go down, down, and finally be lost under the sea. Already it has begun; the mountains grow lower and lower; when I was a boy they were much higher than now. The Marina has sunk in some places a metre. You know the ancient stemma, the coat-of-arms of Sicily, has but three legs? We have lost one leg, there are but two left. When the next leg goes, it will be finished; the island will topple and sink beneath the sea. I have said it.” He made a gesture as if to wipe the ancient island of Trinacria from the face of the globe.

It was the third day of the cruise of the “Bayern;” all the relief party were on shore, except Wilfred Thompson and J., who had been detained on board by their work. J., who had come up from the hold to take a breath, listened half consciously to the talk of Gasperone and Hugh, the Yeoman. In his confused memories of that time this scrap of their conversation survives.

What has happened since the “Bayern” sailed from Civitavecchia? First one, then another of that strangely assorted ship’s company shall tell the story.

“Immediately on getting under way,” writes Captain Belknap, “the work of arranging our supplies began, so that we might know what, how much, and where to lay our hands on everything. Supplies purchased at Genoa were in the after hold, those from Rome forward; except for this separation everything was mixed together. The Rome purchases had been made by several persons acting independently; marks on many packages had been torn off or obliterated in the hurry of transportation, and the difficulty was increased by the absence of many invoices. Fortunately good weather favored us. The work continued in the fore hold until ten P.M. on Thursday.”

“Worked very hard till dinner getting cargo in order and opening up some stuff. After dinner worked on bills with Flint and Hale,” writes Wilfred Thompson in his diary for January 7th.

A letter from J., of the same date, gives a fuller account of the first day:

“We got straight to work the moment you were all clear of the ship. I didn’t even get a chance to take a snap-shot as we left the harbor of Civitavecchia; indeed, I didn’t even see the town, as I was helping Thompson with his invoices. After that we all went down in the hold and were hunting or moving things and getting them up on deck. Such confusion as there was in the hold, it is impossible to imagine! Everything simply dumped in a heap. I found a lot of things they wanted. We worked down there till dinner just like porters, and I am tired as a dog.”

Friday, January 8th, was a busy day for all on board. In the morning the weather was fine, at noon they passed Stromboli, the burning mountain that rises in a sharp cone from the Tyrrhene Sea. Mr. Thompson notes in his diary the beauty of the Calabrian coast. They passed near enough the shore to see the people of the ruined villages living in tents and shanties.

J.’s letter for that day says:

“After breakfast I went to find sterilized milk in the forward hold. Then I got to work with Hooper, who is a brick, as my partner, and between us we cleaned out that hold. Mr. Griscom came down and saw what we were doing, and tried to photograph us. He approved our efforts, which resulted in our finding many things at the bottom that were supposed to be missing. Such a jumble there never was seen! Everything had been hauled off the lighters and pitched into the holds, without any attempt at order; one and every kind of thing on top of the other and always the thing most needed at the bottom. When I tell you that a bunch of picks and spades had been dropped upon boxes of macaroni, you may get a slight idea of what would naturally happen. I spent the day as Hooper’s side companion—a bully worker, no shirk in him—and we got through about six this evening. It was a splendid day and Thompson, who worked above the water line, had a glimpse of Stromboli as we passed it about noon. At 4.45 we dropped anchor at Messina—what there is left of it, only a heap of ruins, though at first sight the houses didn’t seem to be so utterly destroyed. However, under the searchlights from the ships one could see how complete the ruin is—nothing but heaps of rubbish with walls sticking up above them. As soon as we came to anchor, the Captain of the Port came aboard. I stuck to the Commander like Sherlock Holmes and was his interpreter. He (the Italian port official) wanted to know the kind of things we had on board. Three American officers came aboard with Major Landis and Delmé Radcliffe, Mr. Cutting and Chanler, who seemed quite in his element.... Everyone says what splendid work he has been doing. A little later the Ambassador and the Commander (Belknap), Mr. Lupton, the American Vice Consul, Major Landis, and yours truly, went to see General Mazza on board the ‘Duca di Genova,’ a magnificent Italian liner. It was all very interesting. I went as interpreter. Delmé Radcliffe is quartered on board the staff ship, so he went with us too. He applied to the captain of one of the American ships in the harbor for a boat to take the remains of the English Consul’s wife to the cemetery tomorrow morning, but could not get one promised till three P.M., as the U. S. flagship only arrives in the morning. Mr. Griscom returns on her and brings you this letter. Delmé Radcliffe saw a man taken out alive at six o’clock this afternoon. A propos of boots, they seem to be the things most needed. I fear I have lost my pen in the hold. I am sorry Mr. Griscom is leaving, and Dodge too. D. has been working like a slave. Splendid! I forgot to say that the visit to the General in command was to place the ship with everything aboard at his disposal.”

Captain Belknap’s record for the same day, giving a fuller account of the visit to the “Duca di Genova,” ends with these words:

“General Mazza expressed his warm appreciation of the offer and the spirit that prompted it, and recommended that the ship proceed to Catania and Palermo, possibly also to Syracuse, as these places had received many sick, wounded and refugees, but so far no help in proportion to their needs. At Messina the situation was well in hand and supplies were already available, sufficient for all requirements.”

The next morning, Saturday, the U. S. S. “Connecticut,” flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Sperry commanding, arrived at Messina with her tender, the “Yankton,” and the supply ship, “Culgoa.” A conference was held, and the plan of action, the policy of the American relief work in Sicily was doubtless then and there perfected; of this the men in the hold of course knew little or nothing. They only knew that Mr. Griscom, the leader of the expedition, was to leave them and were sorry that he should go.

Admiral Sperry landed two hundred and fifty men to excavate the American Consulate and recover the bodies of the Consul and his wife; the “Yankton” remained at Messina as a base of supplies; and the “Connecticut,” with the Ambassador on board, sailed for Naples Saturday afternoon and left the “Bayern” to coöperate with the supply ship, “Culgoa,” in relief work along the coast.

Several boatloads of supplies for the American Consulate were landed, and a large amount of food and clothes was given with a sum of money to the Archbishop of Messina. About the time the “Connecticut” sailed, a message was received by the Americans that at Reggio, the city on the Calabrian shore that faces Messina, their help would be gratefully received.

While all these official matters were going on, Wilfred Thompson was busy with his invoices and accounts, and J. with his stores in the hold. It was not until the afternoon of Saturday that they went on shore. Gasperone and Hugh, the Yeoman, went with them. In all J.’s notes and letters there is frequent mention of the strange Sicilian servant, Gasperone, who seems to have been half crazed by the earthquake, and of Hugh, the Yeoman, one of the enlisted men who had sailed on the great cruise round the world.

They landed in a pouring rain and made their way to the ruins of the American Consulate. From a shattered window flapped a yellow brocade curtain above a huge mass of stone and plaster, with gaunt beams sticking up against the leaden sky. A detachment of American sailors were working here in shifts day and night. A little farther on the party stopped, rooted to the earth by the sound of a weird lament, like the keening of the mourners at an Irish wake. They soon saw where the dreadful wailing came from. Seated on a pile of debris was an old woman, all huddled together, her head in her hands, her knees drawn up to her chin, swaying slowly backwards and forwards, the movement of her body keeping time to her moans; she might have been one of the ancient cave-dwellers, the attitude, the lament seemed a strange primitive expression of despair, old as the race.

“That is Sora Anna; they have found her son’s head and part of the body,” said Gasperone indifferently. “That girl is Elena, his fidanzata; they were to be married this month. They are waiting for the coffin.”

The girl, Elena, stood beside the old woman like a thing of stone. She was a beautiful creature; her face was almost as white as the lint with which her head was bandaged. Silent and dry-eyed, she looked like a statue of revolt. At her feet lay the ghastly fragments of her lover’s body. Two soldiers passed with picks on their shoulders; one of them asked the girl if he could help her. She paid no attention, but stood looking across the sea, stony and silent, while the mother wailed the death song for her son.

“Come,” said Gasperone, “it will be dark in an hour; the sun no sooner gets up than it goes to bed. Madonna! With all the rest, it is too much that the days should be so short. After dark, the wild dogs who come from the mountains to devour the dead are dangerous; in the day, they are more timid, the soldiers have shot so many.”

Gasperone led the way towards the cathedral square. On their way they passed the ruins of the Banca d’Italia, guarded by a strong force of soldiers.

“There is a great treasure here,” said Gasperone, “that must be guarded at any cost, you understand. These soldiers might—but it is always so; gold is worth more than flesh and blood!”

In one of the main streets Gasperone stopped beside a tragic group—a priest, an old woman and a dead man.

“Ah, behold!” he cried, “they have just found Padre Antonio’s twin brother. He and his mother were the only ones saved of a family of fourteen.”

The priest, haggard and wild looking, with his arm in a sling, began to read aloud a prayer. His mother stood beside him, swaying backwards and forwards. As the prayer ended, the mother joining in the benediction, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritûs Sancti; a newspaper reporter fixed his camera on a tripod and photographed the pathetic group. The rain, that had stopped for a moment, now came down again in torrents and drenched them all to the skin.

“It was raining like mad most of the time,” J. writes, “I can well understand how your poor old woman, Rosina, kept harping on the rain. Anything more dismal it is hard to imagine. I have only been made uncomfortable by it; but there are hundreds of poor people camping out wherever there is a clear space big enough to run up a primitive shelter with boards, if they have them, or sails rigged on poles. I saw one ambitious family roofing roughly with tiles they had collected from the streets. They seemed to be the first to make the attempt, though the streets are literally strewn with tiles. In these poor shelters, and in the miserable little tents (some of them about half big enough for a man to crawl into and lie down, and which do not reach the ground by about a foot and a half) the water had flooded everything. The suffering from this cruel rain that these poor souls endure must be cruel beyond words.”

Mr. Thompson writes under the same date:

“Worked early getting off the goods the Vice Consul had asked for. The Ambassador and the rest of the party, except Elliott and myself, went on shore; weather very wet and stormy. Lunched early and went on shore with Elliott, passing the ‘Connecticut’ with the Ambassador on board. Went to temporary Consulate and met Deputy Vice-Consul, Mr. Cutting, and the acting English Consul. Then Elliott and I went out to see the town, wearing our red crosses. The sights were terrible; we realize now what an earthquake means. We walked along the Marina, the former chief water-front street. It has in places sunk beneath the water level, and is full of huge cracks. Here and there we passed a house but little damaged, but nearly all have the roofs fallen in; and, curious to say, at short intervals are houses that have been utterly and entirely smashed for no particular reason that one could see. The American and British Consulates are a case in point. Italian soldiers were digging and the party from the ‘Culgoa’ working all day under the driving rain, looking in vain for the bodies of the American Consul and his wife. Constantly saw soldiers with spades passing along. The city is under martial law and we saw many soldiers on guard. A few people living in wooden shanties or among the ruins with the rain soaking in upon them. Made our way inland to the cathedral which looks, as far as one can judge, as though the façade must have been fine. The ruins of the cathedral are well guarded by soldiers, on account of the great treasure buried there. The streets around the duomo are so ruined that we climbed over debris level with the second and third floors. The presence of the dead was all too obvious at every few yards. It will take two or three years to clear what is left of the city, and I should think it was a hopeless task and that Messina must be abandoned. Some of the

remains, broken beds and chairs, tawdry candlesticks, torn dresses were very pathetic. One of the sentries stood on guard under a black silk lace-trimmed parasol. So fearfully wet we returned to the Consulate and found Mr. Griscom. About four P. M. we went down on the beach to wait for the boat. Grand and terrible storm over Calabrian coasts. Flashes of lightning lit up the shipping in the harbor and the dreary shore with its broken barrels and all kinds of rubbish. Fell in with an officer from the ‘Culgoa.’ Frightful rain and flashes of blinding lightning. When it was dark but for these, the launch from the ‘Bayern’ at last arrived with a boat in tow. The boat was cut loose, but the fool men did not know how to manage it and tried to beach it on the shelving shore over a huge iron grating. Every wave filled the boat and the men let her get broadside on and almost swamped her. To my relief Mr. Cutting was on board and jumped into the water over his knees. Cutting ordered the men to carry the bales and cases of stores ashore. The goods were full of water and some were in consequence almost too heavy to carry. Quite dark except for the lightning. I sent a man back to the Consulate for a lantern, which helped somewhat. Finally Cutting and the men went off and left me to guard the goods. When all but the heaviest were taken away I went to the Consulate, taking my officer. Found various men and we had hot coffee, which was welcome and I think saved me. My coat so heavy with water I could hardly move under the weight. Great difficulty in getting the German sailors (of the ‘Bayern’) to carry up the heavy cases to the Consulate. If Cutting had not spoken German we never could have done so. Finally got it done and started to walk about a mile to where the launch and boat were waiting for us. Weird effects! Lights of ships in the harbor over inky black water and sky. At last got launch and got to our ship. Tired out but felt better after dinner. Dreams full of earthquake and huge waves. The desolation of those hours in the drenching rain, waiting for the boat, will remain always in my mind!”

“January 10th: Left Messina about 7:30 A.M. in rain. Came over to Reggio and lay there all day. Commander Belknap heard from the Italian cruiser, ‘Napoli,’ that they wanted stores there, so we had a hard and busy day getting them out. Officers and boats came about three P.M. to fetch them. So rushed had hardly time to look at coast and Reggio, but it did not seem so badly damaged as one would expect from the newspaper accounts. The ‘Napoli’ is to distribute our stores to the small towns along the coast. Tired out and bruised by fall. Thick wet evening. At dark got all boats on board and got up anchor and went back to Messina, and lay there for the night about a mile off shore (there is no anchorage at Reggio). Woman said to have been taken out alive from debris at Messina but to have died later.”

J.’s letter for the same date says:

“I only got a squint at Reggio for a moment, just as we were leaving, when the rain let up a little and we had sent our last boatload ashore. I spent all the morning getting up the stuff from the hold and keeping track of it, and most of the afternoon. What did not go into the boats went into the forward hold. I hunted among hundreds of bales and things for two bales of tent canvas, which I found and got on deck. Chanler had been down there with a gang in the morning and arranged things in a way that made it possible. The last time I was down there it was in a terrible mess with everything together. You see the after holds are where I have been since the first day, and in my part I know where to find everything they ask for, though some things—the white beans for instance—I can’t get at, as there are two layers of sacks on top of ’em, which will have to be removed first. It is raining like mad most of the time; I never saw such rain as we had last night. I believe I have said so already; anything more dismal it is hard to imagine.”

In Captain Belknap’s report of this day he says:

“We were unable to see General Mazzitelli (in command at Reggio), as he was ill, but Captain Cagni, commanding the ‘Napoli,’ senior Italian naval officer present, received us in his stead. He showed much satisfaction in having our supplies to draw upon, especially for women and children’s clothing, oil stoves, tent canvas, cooking and table utensils, tools and nails. About four-fifths of the ‘Napoli’s’ crew had been sent away on relieving expeditions among the outlying small villages, and our supplies were in good time for use in a second expedition which was being prepared. We were cordially thanked for our supplies (about 25 tons), which we were able to transfer that afternoon. The ‘Bayern’ then returned to anchor overnight at Messina, there being no good berth at Reggio. The ‘Culgoa’ remained off Reggio to deliver provisions next day.”

Remember Captain Cagni! We shall hear of him again; a live man, with red blood in his veins!

Extract from Mr. Thompson’s diary.

“Monday, January 11th: Left Messina about six A.M. Splendid rainbow with moon above it. At 7:30 as we passed close to the coast, the lower slopes of Etna, covered with snow, visible. Unfortunately a cloud on top. Anchored off Catania at 10:30. Ugly town from the sea view, but Etna proud above it.”

Extract from J.’s letter of same date:

“We have been getting rid of a lot of stuff and I believe are likely to discharge the greater part of our cargo here, perhaps all, and take a fresh cargo of planks and building wood to some particular place where they are very much in need of it for shelter. This afternoon I helped Captain Belknap to receive the Prefetto and Sindaco of Catania, together with a committee of ladies and gentlemen, and to show them over the ship. The operating room, store room, and rooms where the nurses have the clothes, boots, hats, etc., which they put up in bundles as they are wanted. They inspected also the staterooms, turned into hospital wards. As soon as they were all gone I got the hatches off (it was six o’clock), went down into the hold and sent up sixteen bales of blankets and two cases of suits of clothes. As luck would have it, I had them all moved in the morning, right under the crane so that I was able to get them slung up and over the side into the boats on record time, but for all that it took an hour and three quarters and I didn’t come out of the hold till eight o’clock. I helped Thompson for about an hour after dinner, and that let me out for today. We started in with breakfast at 7:30; hatch off at 8:30, work till lunch at 12 o’clock; then getting ready for the reception—the receiving committee being Captain Belknap, Hooper (my side companion) and Gay—myself and Flint (a firstrate Harvard boy) as assistants to handle the crowd. I have done so many different things today that I have forgotten about half of them. Now I must go to bed as tomorrow is going to be a tremendous day.”

 

Catania is the second largest city in Sicily. Twenty-five thousand of the survivors had been sent to Catania from Messina and the smaller towns destroyed by the earthquake; the problem of supplying food, clothing and shelter for these poor people was no easy one for the Catanians to solve. Catania had not suffered from the earthquake and therefore was not under military law; the civil authorities were most grateful and appreciative of all the help the Americans offered in whatever shape. Admiral Gagliardi, who was in the harbor on board the battleship “Garibaldi,” seems to have been as cordial in his reception of the “Bayern” as the Sindaco. He immediately sent an officer to welcome the expedition and to offer any assistance Captain Belknap might require. The cordial relations that immediately sprang up between the Italian admiral and the commander of the American relief expedition can be felt even in Captain Belknap’s necessarily guarded record.

“We were immediately boarded by an officer from the battleship ‘Garibaldi,’” he says, “with the compliments of Rear Admiral Gagliardi. The Admiral offered us any assistance we might need; and when I made an official visit to him that afternoon, he inquired with much interest about all that could be learned of the situation at Messina and Reggio, and about the expedition. He very kindly made it well understood that we had only to ask to obtain any assistance at his disposal—an offer that I was glad to avail of, for men to assist with handling supplies, transmission of telegrams by wireless, and service of boats. The Admiral returned the visit next day, inspected the ship with evident interest, and expressed his approval of her organization and arrangements, particularly of the medical department.”

Catania was glad to see the Americans, and the Americans were glad to see Catania. Everything combined to make the visit a success. It is noted in the diary that the eleventh of January was “a splendid warm day and a starlight night.” The dreadful rain had held up for a little; they were received with open arms. The Sindaco letter of welcome, dated January 11th, rings true:—

Catania, the rival seaport of Messina, is a thriving city but the drain put upon the citizens, many of whom had suffered great loss of property through the earthquake, and the consequent paralysis to business all over Sicily, was more than they could meet. The relief work was in the hands of a Municipal Committee and a Ladies’ Committee; through these well organized committees the medicines, clothes, food and tools that our committee in Rome, and our Consul in Genoa, had worked so hard to collect, were distributed and put into immediate use. Mr. Hooper notes in his diary that “Mr. Gay and Mr. Cutting were sent on shore to investigate hospitals and the general situation.”

Tuesday, the 12th of January, was a busy day; the men in the holds worked from early morning till late night, getting out stores as they were wanted. Here at last was a demand for their wares. In desperate, stricken Messina General Mazza’s policy was to discourage the few survivors from remaining. The military authorities wished to get rid of them as quickly as possible, and they were shipped to all parts of Italy by steamer or train. The entry in Mr. Thompson’s diary for January 12th is briefer than usual, but the quality and color of it brings the whole scene vividly before us.

“January 12th: In Catania harbor all day unloading goods. A long hard day. Crowd of soldiers, sailors, representatives of various hospitals, priests, sisters of charity and others, all standing about, asking for ‘goods’ and getting in the way. Had a party of thirty men from Italian warship to help load the lighters. The hardest day of the expedition, nearly knocked out by night. A beautiful day, especially towards sunset. Admiral Gagliardi from the ‘Garibaldi’ came aboard with officers and the committee from Taormina arrived; Miss Claxton, one of the nurses, left us. German Consul and friends to dinner. Two quite dirty men kissed Gay on each cheek as a slight token of their gratitude.”

The committee from Taormina included Miss Mabel Hill, Fräulein Gasser, Mr. Harry Bowdoin, and Mr. Charles King Wood. They brought with them a letter from the Sindaco of Giardini, a fishing village on the coast, at the foot of the hill on which Taormina stands.

Captain Belknap’s report of the Taormina Committee’s visit says:

“Upon their representations of conditions in their district, work already done and still in hand, and cases of need still unrelieved, about twenty tons of clothing, sheets, blankets, provisions, medical dressings and miscellaneous articles were given into their care for shipment by rail, and 10,000 lire to be spent at the discretion of the committee in their work in these two places. We also sent with this shipment all clean linen remaining on board. The services of a nurse were also wanted at Taormina and Giardini, and Miss Claxton was sent with this party on their return there. A letter since then has been received from Miss Claxton, saying that she is engaged as a district or visiting nurse, and that all the supplies sent have proved very useful. A further sum of money was entrusted to Messrs. Bowdoin and Wood, both members of the American Red Cross, who undertook to arrange for the expenditure for the relief of the small villages outside Giardini and Taormina, between there and Messina.

“In response to an appeal from Acireale, Mr. Gay made a personal visit among the relief workers there, after which some clothing and other supplies and 5,000 lire were delivered to them. To the Little Sisters of the Poor 1,000 lire were given for their immediate assistance. A few bundles of clothing were sent by rail to Messina in care of Mr. Chanler in response to a wireless message from the ‘Yankton.’”

The Little Sisters of the Poor had suffered heavily at Messina. Their convent and the schools and hospital attached to it had been completely destroyed; many of the sisters had been killed or injured. The devotion and courage of these faithful nuns to the old people and the children under their care made a deep impression on all the company on board the “Bayern.”

“While lying in Catania,” Captain Belknap continues, “knowing that lumber was needed at Reggio, Mr. Flint was sent ashore Wednesday morning, to buy such quantity as we could get on board that day. Lighterage facilities were very scarce, as many steamers were in the harbor discharging; but by the persistent efforts of the German Vice-Consul, Mr. Jacob Peratoner, who very kindly devoted almost his entire day in our behalf, we succeeded in getting on board enough lumber to build 25 houses, 13 by 13 feet, complete with floors.”

Mr. Thompson’s diary for January 13th is of unusual interest. This journal is human and vital. It tells us just what one man saw, did, and understood; it reflects his mood; it has the heat of his life. It gives us a series of snap-shots of the good ship “Bayern” with the rosy eupeptic German Captain and the pale slender American Commander, the crew—rather a poor lot of sailors got together at a few hours’ notice—the stewards neat and literal, the cast-iron routine, the prescribed Italian doctor, and all the usual personnel of a North German Lloyd liner, commandeered for unusual service, with the supreme authority vested for the nonce in the American Commander, the quiet man with a will of iron, who never seems to rest, but by his example ceaselessly stimulates, vitalizes, every member of the ship’s company.

These twenty-one old people were between eighty and one hundred years of age. The Sisters had assumed the care and future responsibility for these poor souls.

The stay at Catania was the most important phase of the “Bayern’s” cruise. Here the most significant work of the expedition was accomplished. The Americans were brought into close and cordial relation with the leaders of the relief work in Catania. They visited the refuges and, finding how well they were administered and how grievously in need of succor, they helped with money and all the remaining stores of the “Bayern.”

At Catania the American Committee for the first time was brought into direct touch with the Americans working at Taormina; here was another channel through which the stream of American help could flow directly from the source of supply to its destination, administered from first to last by Americans. The policy of the committee was, as far as possible, to employ Americans to disburse the American money and the supplies it had purchased. It was more satisfactory to the contributors, and was of great use to the earnest men and women who devoted themselves to the cause. Here the committee came in contact, not only with Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Wood, those tireless workers from Taormina, but with Miss Katherine Bennett Davis, one of the most significant figures among all those who labored for Italy in her dark hour. They had expected to go to Syracuse, and Mr. Cutting went thither by rail in order to learn the existing conditions of the relief work. He reported that the work in Syracuse was admirably organized, under the leadership of Miss Davis. It was found best, however, not to take the ship to Syracuse, and Mr. Flint was sent there with an American sailor to guard him and the large sum of money he carried for Syracuse. The greater part was given to Miss Davis, the rest was divided between the Sindaco and the Marchesa de Rudini.

The refugees taken on board at Catania added to the interest of life on the “Bayern,” though the men in the hold had little time to notice them; still they added a certain color and picturesqueness to the daily routine. J. has memories of the little children dancing on the deck of the “Bayern,” romping in and out of the piles of goods as they came up from the hold; and strongest of all, of Sor Michaele, an old opera singer, from the almshouse at Messina, who sat all day long at the piano in the blue brocade saloon, playing and singing the operas of his youth.

In Catania the members of the “Bayern” expedition saw thousands of the superstiti. Here they learned what the effects of the earthquake had been upon the survivors.

“They had all been singed by death,” writes J. “They looked like death’s heads with the grin and the terror of the skull in their faces. One woman—I saw her once, I heard of her often—went from hospital to hospital, to the refuges, to all the places where there were profughi, asking the same question everywhere: ‘Have you here perchance a baby who has the habit of sucking the two first fingers of his left hand?’ That was the only clue she had to her lost child. I never could hear whether or not she found him. In one of the refuges I saw a woman who was said to be one of the richest people in Messina. She had lost every member of her family, she had nothing in the world, not a suit of clothes, not a crust, nothing but herself. Dr. Alessandrini, who is studying the nervous effects of the earthquake, says that most of the survivors dream continually of it. We saw one woman who had dreamed of it every night and each time awoke in a convulsion of fright. They were in great doubt if they could save her life. The children, even the quite grown ones of fourteen or fifteen, however, forgot it all immediately. It was like a bad dream to them.”

The automobile accident Thompson referred to, was telegraphed to Rome. At ten o’clock that night I read an exaggerated account of it in a newspaper. “The painter Elliott injured in an automobile accident,” was the heading in the Roman Tribuna. In his letter J. makes light of the accident.

“It was nothing but a collision, the jar of which drove my nose through the plate-glass window of the automobile. Sicily is a bad place for automobiles; the people won’t get out of the way. I heard one fellow say, ‘Am I a goat that I should skip out of the way of this thing?’ They are half Oriental; it would be undignified to run in order to get out of the way of a motor. Mr. Robert Winthrop has brought down a lot of tetanus antitoxin. Captain Belknap has divided it between Messina and Catania.”

At Reggio the nurses, J., and another member of the expedition were having their lunch on the outskirts of the town close by the station. Near where they sat the railroad carriages, swept off the track and out to sea by the tidal wave, lay half submerged in the water, washing idly to and fro, one of the strangest sights of all that topsy-turvy world. The carriages were doubly lost, first to the railroad company for transporting passengers, second to the poor profughi who used the railroad carriages as houses. Happy the family who could find shelter in one of them from rain and cold!

As the party from the “Bayern” were finishing lunch, an orderly from Captain Cagni brought an invitation to come to headquarters and have some hot coffee. The invitation was accepted with glee, and they waited while the coffee was made by one of the soldiers. It was hot, it was black, but, alas, it was salt. The supply of fresh water was so meagre that they used sea water to wash the dishes, and the orderly who made the coffee made the mistake of taking salt water instead of fresh. There were a thousand apologies, and the hospitable host begged the guests to wait till a fresh pot of coffee was brewed, but time pressed, and they were due on board the “Bayern.” One of the Americans, adding brandy to his coffee, tried to drink it with painful results. They gave the remains of their luncheon to some children; every crumb of food was precious, even at Reggio where the suffering from hunger was never so great as at Messina. Captain Cagni saw to that! First he commandeered all the cattle in the neighborhood and served them out in rations as beef. When the cattle gave out, the donkeys were gathered in and served out as beef, mind you, always beef. Finally the dogs and cats were served out in the same way. Captain Cagni said it was beef, so beef it was.

Captain Belknap had received several messages from Mr. Bishop, the American Consul at Palermo, asking that the “Bayern” visit that place, where the crowd of profughi was so enormous that the Palermitans could not begin to feed and clothe them. It was decided to visit Palermo on the way from the Straits of Death back to Civitavecchia. The fifteenth of January was the last day of their stay in the ruined districts.

Truly misery makes strange bedfellows! The misery of Messina had brought together an oddly assorted company of volunteers on board the “Bayern.” There was Mr. Gay, the Secretary of the Committee, a Fellow of Harvard College settled in Rome, who has devoted many years to the preparation of a History of the Italian Risorgimento; his splendid library at the Palazzo Orsini contains a remarkable collection of books and pamphlets on the subject. There was William Hooper of Boston, a man of affairs and a famous Harvard athlete, who had left the ease of his apartment opposite the Palazzo Margherita in Rome to act as treasurer to the expedition. There was Wilfred Thompson, the painter, who had left his studio and his little cat, to act as supercargo; Robert Hale, another painter, who in the list of assistants is set down as an assistant in the forward hold; the Avvocato Giordano, one of the most brilliant of the writers on the Tribuna. There was Weston Flint, the assistant treasurer, four Italian doctors, six nurses, and John Elliott (J.), who had left his studio to act “as interpreter and to assist in after holds and elsewhere.” These were the permanent members of the expedition. Now and then across this constellation of fixed stars flamed the meteor Chanler, a trail of glory behind him, and the indomitable Cutting, our Consul from Milan, who served in a thousand capacities beside inducing the German sailors to carry up the heavy cases to the temporary Consulate. They had some mishaps of course. The first day Mr. Gay fell down and broke a rib; the same day J. tumbled down an iron ladder into the hold and scraped the flesh off his lean shanks. Thompson, who had a cough, was drenched to the skin over and over again—that did not improve his health—and Cutting—alas and alas, that gallant soul who could never think of himself, had many a ducking besides the one Thompson describes, and endured endless discomforts at the “temporary Consulate” where he, Chanler and Major Landis lived during those first ghastly days. The only tie that bound together these men of varying tastes and habits, was the Red Cross each wore on his arm. In all the letters, reports, journals that tell the story of the “Bayern’s” cruise the most striking thing is the way these men speak of each other. Every man saw his comrades in a golden glow of enthusiasm; they were all good men and true in their fellows’ eyes!

As the “Bayern” steamed across the harbor of Civitavecchia J. looked into the blue brocade saloon. Sor Michaele, the old opera singer, sat at the white and gold piano, his stiff fingers surprisingly limbered up, striking the keys briskly, while his shrunken voice quavered out “Spirito Gentil,” the glorious aria from La Favorita that he had sung in his far off youth, now made familiar the world over by Caruso and the “Victor.” After he had struck the last chords, the old man’s head dropped on his breast and he began to sob.

“Coraggio!” cried J., “what is wrong with you? We’re almost there; your troubles are nearly over.”

“It is all finished,” sobbed the old man. “I have not been so happy for twenty years as I have been on board this ship. At the almshouse there is no piano; who knows if I shall ever see one again?”

 

Soon after the “Bayern’s” return, the Ambassador despatched a relief expedition under the leadership of Mr. Gay to the Calabrian mountain towns. Mr. Gay was accompanied by Captain Armando Mola of the Italian army, and Mr. W. Earl Dodge, who took with him his large automobile, thereby adding greatly to the effectiveness of the expedition. They had a wonderful trip, visiting forty villages, some of them almost inaccessible mountain hamlets. During the eleven days their trip lasted, they brought help to many a forlorn community that had heretofore received no outside assistance since the disaster. Mr. Gay has written an admirable report of the expedition, so full, so graphic, that it leaves nothing for me to say, save that I am thankful that this chapter of the romance of the American Relief Work has been told so well. The report should be read by all interested in knowing the full scope of the work. Mr. Gay’s letter to the Ambassador written from Palmi, gives a striking picture of what he saw and accomplished.

“Not a rose!” Vera scanned the sunny south wall where Ignazio, the gardener, has trained the hardy roses. It has been his boast that we can gather at least one rose every day of the year.

“What do you expect? The earthquake has turned the calendar topsy-turvy. Nena says this is the coldest winter she remembers; she must be nearly a hundred.”

It was the terrace hour; Vera had dropped in to help with the flowers. It was too cold to water them, so we “pottered about,” weeded, and hunted snails.

“That’s a brave flower! See, it has three blossoms; if the sun comes out tomorrow there may be more.” Vera counted the pretty trumpet-shaped blossoms of the freesia, growing in the old terra-cotta cinerary urn.

“This once held the ashes of a soldier of the Pretorian Guard,” said Vera. She had given us the urn. “Do you suppose a pinch of his dust remains in it? There’s your freesia’s courage accounted for. I wonder what he was called. Herminius, Spurius Lartius? There was neither name nor date when I bought it; they must have been on the missing cover. What noble action!” Vera’s thumb followed, with the sculptor’s gesture, the lines of the Pretorian, modelled in low relief on the urn. He wears a mantle, helmet and greaves; his spear is raised against a crouching barbarian. “He must have been a fine man, our Pretorian, though this isn’t a portrait, only a type. Oh, how civilized those old Romans were! No ugly bones, no grinning skulls. The worn-out body to the clean flame, the handful of ashes to this graceful urn, that two thousand years after the Pretorian’s death serves as a flower pot.”

“I believe his name was Philippus,” I said, “and that he looked like our Philippus. The regiment has returned from Messina without him. I fear something has happened to our handsome soldier.”

“Hush!” cried Vera. “The earthquake was a month ago; it still is the only thing we talk or think about.”

“Some of our friends begin to forget. The mother of a pretty girl was grumbling today because the Queen says there shall be no court balls, no more dancing this season. She does not forget; no one who has seen Messina forgets!”

“Come, let us walk!” There was a touch of tramontana in the air, and we began to pace up and down the terrace, Romulus, Vera’s uncouth puppy, shambling at her heel. The bells of St. Peter’s were ringing the Ave Maria; from the Pincio came little gusts of music,—the band was playing Cavalleria Rusticana. At either end of the terrace we lingered to feast on the beauty of the view; to the east the white road climbs zigzag from the Piazza del Popolo to the Pincio, with its crown of dark cypresses and stone pines, its wonderful clipped ilex walk that leads to the Villa Medici, home of nightingale and rose. To the west we looked down to the yellow Tiber, angry and swollen, hurrying to the sea. The river was higher than I ever saw it; the driftwood, caught by the piers of the Ponte Margherita, reached half-way to the level of the bridge.

“A thousand apologies!” said a voice behind us; “is not this the tortoise of your Excellency? The German maid found it on the terrace of the Princess.”

It was Ignazio, holding between scornful thumb and finger that yellow mottled vagrant, Jeremy Bentham, who clawed the air furiously with his ridiculous short legs and snapped fiercely at Ignazio.

“You are aware the tortoise is ours; you yourself carved that date upon his shell. If you had stopped the hole in the wall this would not have happened.”

“Excellency” (Ignazio’s bill was paid that morning; he will call me “Excellency” till the next is due, then it will be “Signora”), “Excellency, this is the most obstinate of all animals, the slowest, the idlest, the most useless.” Ignazio dipped the tortoise in the fountain, then laid him on the parapet out of reach of Romulus, who was making frantic efforts to get at him.

“You yourself tell me he eats the slugs and snails that destroy our flowers!”

“I repeat it, but he has embarrassed me extremely in regard to the Princess, who becomes ill at the sight of him. This is the third time he has invaded her terrace.”

“How about that boy from Messina you promised to employ?” asked Vera. “He is quite well again; it’s time he went to work. I can’t have him idling about my kitchen any longer.”

Ignazio would not have come up to the terrace had he known Vera was there. He nervously nibbled the yellow fibre he had brought to tie up the passion-flower vine.

“Excellency, no! I said I would try to find him employment. I have done so. Capperi! I have asked an infinite number of persons—always the same answer. In Rome there is not work enough for the Romans, nor bread to spare. The Sicilians must go back to Sicily, or,” he waved his hand vaguely towards Ostia, “over there.” Over there meant to America.

“Where were you born, Ignazio?” I interrupted. “You do not speak like a Romano di Roma.” His glance was a reproach; I had betrayed him.

“It is true, I am from Siena—but there is a difference between an Umbrian and a Sicilian!”

“It is always the same story!” I said. “I have asked every plumber in Rome to employ Francesco Calabresi. They will give money, bread, clothes; to a man they refuse him work.”

“Self preservation! Oh, how worldly-wise the old race is! The man’s right though; there is not work enough to go round; one must consider one’s own interests or we should all go bankrupt. That’s what ‘mind your business’ means! If you don’t look out for yourself, some one else must.”

J. came up on the terrace at that moment; Vera waved her little hand gaily to him.

“What news from Messina?”

“No news; I wish I knew how they are getting on.”

“I have a letter from the Avvocato Bonanno, asking about the family of Count Q.”

“I have just come from there. I will write him. The Count can speak now, but he’s paralyzed, he will never walk again.”

“You’re fretting to get back to Sicily; so am I.”

It was true; since his return from the cruise of the “Bayern,” Rome, even his studio, seemed tame to J. How could he, and Vera too, long to go back to that place of death, when Rome, the Eternal City, wooed with the voice of her fountains, the perfumed breath of her villas, the beauty of her everlasting hills?

“I have had an inspiration,” Vera made the pretty insistent gesture of her finger that rules us all. “This is the psychological moment to exhibit your Diana. Rome is sick with grief! There’s nothing going on, not a reception, not even a dinner. Any invitation to do anything, besides give money and sew garments pro Calabria e Sicilia, will be a godsend. That’s the practical side of it; then there’s the other side. We have supped full on horrors; comfort us with a sight of the lovely lady.”

Most of her friends follow Vera’s advice, for her’s is a master spirit; when she takes hold of one’s affairs, somehow they always march.

The next week was a busy one. Vera decided that we must ask “all Rome” to the exhibition. In order to do this we borrowed lists from all sorts of people. A little white and gold book, the Roman social register, contains the names of all the Court people, the diplomats, and those who belong to the “smart set.” Then there were the lists of the San Lucca Academy and the Art Club. From the bankers and hotels we gathered as many names of the transient Americans as possible; all our friends helped us. When the long list was ready I sent to an employment bureau for some one to direct the envelopes.

She came, bringing her credentials, at five o’clock; as she was an English lady, and evidently very poor, we asked her to stay to tea. She sat in the Savonarola chair (it belonged to Giovanni Costa, the great artist—J. bought it after his death) and took her tea timidly, spilling a little on her poor faded dress, and crumbling the pan-forte di Siena (sent us at Christmas from Milan) over the best Persian rug. That ought to have been a warning to me, but it wasn’t! We sent the envelopes and the lists to her and turned our minds to other things. The exhibition was to open Tuesday, February 2nd. The envelopes were promised for the previous Saturday, so that the cards might be put in, the stamps affixed, the invitations posted Saturday night. They would then be received on Sunday morning, a good leisure time when busy people have time to read their mail. Vera, Athol, and Wilfred Thompson came to dine Saturday to help us with the envelopes. It was our first social meeting since that fatal night of December 28th; we had all of us need of a little joy; the pain of the last month had left its mark.

Agnese herself bought the stamps; she would trust no other. I had meant to send the cards by hand—it costs no more, and would have given employment to Alessandro, a poveraccio who has attached himself to us.

“These biglietti are important?” asked Agnese when I consulted her about Alessandro.

“Of the greatest importance.”

“Listen to me, Signora. I would not destroy your confidence in Alessandro, no, nor in any other, but the distances are far, the Tiber is near—Alessandro might, by accident, let fall a bunch of these letters as he crosses the bridge. The postino is obliged to make his rounds, the carabinieri keep an eye on him. No, it is safer to trust the post!”

Agnese’s dinners are not like Attilio’s (Vera’s great Neapolitan chef), but she has a way of cooking truffles in white wine and serving them in a napkin, to be eaten with fresh butter, that seems to please. Checco of the Concordia gets us the truffles from some mysterious unfailing source, when they are not to be had in the market. Agnese’s fritta dorata of shrimps, cuttlefish and artichokes is fit for the King or the Pope, or Mr. Roosevelt—his sister once ate one of Agnese’s golden frys and liked it. After dinner the table was cleared, two white aprons were borrowed for Vera and me, and the big packages of envelopes were opened and laid out on the table.

“We had better look them over, don’t you think?” said Athol, the wise, taking up an envelope. “She has a good handwriting—but she makes queer work of these foreign titles. His Excellency the Count and the Countess Lutzow,—really now that won’t do!”

We looked at each other in despair; each had found the most egregious and impossible blunders. All the addresses except the English and Americans, it had been agreed, were to be written in French.

“They must all be done over again!” I cried.

“No, no, it’s not so bad as that. The English ones are all right. We must go over the whole lot, though, sort out the bad ones and redirect them.

“Who is going to do it?” I groaned. That was the question. Vera’s handwriting, though distinguished, is cryptic, owing to her having learned to write German and Russian before the Latin script. Athol’s tired hand had held the pen for eight hours that day, and could not be further taxed. J.’s handwriting is a work of art, and art is long; my own is frankly bad. Thompson had thrown himself into the work of putting in the cards and sticking up the envelopes.

“Handwriting is the only thing that does not improve with practice—the more a man writes, the worse he writes,” said Athol. Here the bell rang insistently; a minute later Agnese announced:

“Quella Signora bella ed alta!”

The beautiful and tall lady followed close upon her, Elinor Diederich, daughter of those gods of our youth, William and Louisa Hunt. Despair, dismay, doubt vanished before her; she blew them all away, as the fresh west wind blows vapors and fog and leaves the sun bright in the sky; that is what it is to inherit the temperament of genius.

“Of course,” said Elinor, picking up one of the badly directed envelopes, “I knew this would happen. That’s the reason I came. I have had an experience of that poor thing’s work myself. I brought my pen; my handwriting’s the best thing about me.” She was hard at it, directing invitations in a handsome hand, as if that had been her calling.

At ten o’clock the bell rang again; there was a parley in the anticamera; a faint odor of cigarette smoke floated into the room.

“It’s Emilio,” J. exclaimed. “Show the Signorino in!”

Emilio Benlieuri, the Spanish sculptor, one of our familiars, appeared in the doorway, a tall lean melancholy man with the burning eyes and the grave bearing of the Valencian Don.

He bowed low to the whole company. “I kiss your feet, Senora,” he began in Castilian.

“I kiss your hand, Caballero,” I responded.

“It is getting late,” whispered Elinor, “really, this isn’t the time for compliments. Make him put on the stamps—they’ll taste good to a hungry man!”

The Valencian, who speaks no English, understood the large gesture with which Elinor invited him to join the circle, and drew up a chair to the round table.

“One more volunteer to the relief!” murmured Vera. “Per carità Agnese, a sponge; the situation is saved!”

Silence settled upon the dining room; the only sounds were the scratch-scratch of Elinor’s pen, the snores of Romulus curled up at Vera’s feet, the tinkle of the fountain up on the terrace under the stars near the Pretorian’s cinerary urn, the rustle of the cards going into the envelopes. On the Gothic sideboard which J. made for our Roman home, the pile of invitations, sealed and stamped, rose higher and higher, finally hiding the legend carved in quaint letters at the top:

“Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”

How much better we never realized perhaps till that night, when the loyalty and devotion of our friends helped us out of that tight place. Love is the real lifting power when all is said. The love of the whole world was helping Italy in her dark hour; the love of our little circle of heart friends lifted and carried us over that difficult moment, smoothed out the only hitch in the preparations for Vera’s exhibition.

We worked till long after midnight. The faithful Valencian was the last to go; he departed in a cab, taking the invitations with him to the Posta Generale. Sunday morning “all Rome” received the card at its breakfast.

Lorenzo, the muratore, one of our oldest friends, arrived early Sunday morning to put the studio in order. Lorenzo was Villegas’s factotum in the days when our dear Maestro lived in his Andalusian villa on the Viale Pariole, before his Mother Spain called him to Madrid to be custodian of her greatest treasure, the Prado Museum. We had not sent for Lorenzo because we knew he had met with an accident. What wireless telegraphy had summoned him just when he was needed?

“What a pleasure to see thee!” Agnese exclaimed as she let Lorenzo in. “And thy foot? Will it allow thee to work? The Signore was bewailing that thou couldst not wax the studio floor. Thou knowest he believes no other is to be trusted.”

“It is true that I am lame. Behold my foot. I can wear no boot, only this slipper of a giant. But as to waxing the floor, I can do it on my knees. The Signore is right, I only can execute that labor with fidelity. As to the injury—well, it was received in the service of the electric company that employs me. They have agreed to pay me a pension till I can go back to work. What matters it if the recovery is retarded? I draw my three francs a day, fresh and fresh. Do you think I would abandon the Signore at such a moment? Thou art new in this house. Who was it that prepared the old studio for the visit of her Majesty the Queen? But that was years ago before thy time!”

From that moment I had no anxiety about the studio. Lorenzo, a Romagnolo, is a tireless worker, one of those Italians who have won for their countrymen the reputation of being the greatest workers in the world.

“I wish I could buy him!” sighed J. when I told him Lorenzo had come.

Monday was a busy day; the old Portuguese leather chair, that the Queen sat in on her last visit, was taken over to the studio, the best rugs, the two Japanese screens, and the Savonarola chair. A table was put near the door with some sheets of paper, pens and ink, in case anybody should want to write. At the last minute Brother Harry, who happened to be passing through Rome, gave a valuable hint:

“Of course you are going to send that portrait of the mother to the studio?”

“Why?” said J., “I never thought of it.”

“Well, think of it now,” said Brother Harry. We thought of it, in the end, thought well of it. The day the exhibition opened the portrait of the old Chieftainess stood on an easel in the studio, ready to “receive” visitors with Diana.

Agnese called me early Tuesday morning.

“Signora, let us go to the studio to arrange the flowers,” she said. “With respect I should prefer it were done before Lorenzo comes. He is prepotente, some things he knows, I do not deny; but the flowers—ah, that is an art by itself!”

At five minutes of ten the last touch had been given to the studio; J. and I stood waiting to receive the guests.

“Suppose nobody comes!”

The answer came quick and sharp; Lorenzo, dressed in his best, wearing one ordinary and one giant boot, his hair shining like the studio floor, threw open the door and announced with a beaming smile:

“Quel Signorino matto!” That mad young man.

“So you thought you would play this hand without me?” said a familiar voice.

“Patsy!”

Where had he come from? We last heard of him at the hacienda of our friend the Argentino, in South America.

“Same old two-and-sixpence, always in at the death! There’s no end of a swell from the Celestial Empire on the stairs!”

“His Excellency the Minister of China,” Lorenzo announced.

The Chinese Minister, followed by his suite, walked into the studio on the stroke of ten, the first minute of the first day of the exhibition.

“Art, you see, is a matter of importance to these people,” Pasty murmured to me. “An invitation to a studio deserves to be treated with respect. When you show that tableau in America I wonder if the mayor, the governor, the sheriff, or even the hog-reeve, will take the trouble to come and see it. The representative of the Chinese Empire comes in person at the first possible moment. That’s my idea of a civilized people!”

The Minister and J. were talking in pantomime, none the less cordially for that. His Excellency wore seraphic clothes, had lovely polished manners; his hand was smooth as a roseleaf, his long nails were miraculous. The party stayed for some time and seemed pleased with their visit. After they had gone, leaving a faint perfume of sandalwood and straw-matting behind them, one of the younger men returned. (He was not of the Legation we heard afterwards). From the first he had seemed deeply impressed with the Diana; he hurried up to J., and pointing to the divine Huntress whispered:

“I beg your pardon, Mister; is that God?”

Our next visitor was a dark energetic Italian, with beautiful manners. He gave no name, none of us had any idea of who he was. He was deeply interested in the painting, looked at it from every point of view, and asked many questions about its final destination. He was not an artist, of that we felt sure, but he was a man with more than a dilettante’s interest in art. At the end of his visit, as he went towards the door, he saw the pens and paper lying on the table.

“Shall I write my name?” he asked politely; then in a bold hand wrote “Luigi Rava.”

“Who is he?” I asked after the dark unknown had driven off in his carriage.

“Only the Minister of Education. Rome seems to be taking your show seriously,” Patsy declared. “That was a good idea, writing his name; mind you make everybody else follow suit. You’re likely to have some interesting autographs before you’re finished.”

None so interesting as the Chinese Minister’s and it was too late for that. We followed Patsy’s advice; after that all the visitors wrote their names. That afternoon the studio was crowded with all sorts and conditions of men and women; artists, tourists, ambassadors, beauties and princes.

“You are the fashion; don’t be too much puffed up by that,” Patsy admonished; “it’s because yours is the only free show open in town!”

The exhibition was to have lasted five days; we had to keep it open a fortnight. As Patsy said, it became the fashion to drop into the studio, a spacious room in the handsome new Studio Corrodi by the Tiber. We never liked it so well as the old studio in the Borgo Sant’ Angelo, but it was more convenient for such a reception. There is a pretty garden with a brand new fountain and brand new flowers at the Corrodi; it is smart, up to date, belonging to the new order of things in Roma Nuova.

One afternoon Archbishop Ireland and his train of attendant Abbesses came to see us. The Archbishop’s sister and several other Mothers Superior had come from America to visit Rome; they were a picturesque group. The Archbishop’s sister was a cheery delightful soul; another of the Mothers was so lovely J. wanted to paint her as Santa Theresa. We met them first at the studio of Carolus Duran (now Director of the French Academy) in the Villa Medici. The “Chèr Maitre” has brought several of his masterpieces from Paris to Rome, among others a study for a crucifixion, a really noble composition; America ought to have it. The Church is so rich in our country that she could well afford to give him a handsome order for it. The Abbesses in their long veils, taking tea with the great French painter, was one of those impressions of the contrasts of Roman life I shall not forget. They all came to our studio; among the treasured names in the list of autographs are those of Mother Celestine, Mother Seraphine, Mother Agnes Gonzaga.

“They remind me,” said Patsy, after the Archbishop and the ladies took their leave, “of Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B., his sisters and his cousins and his aunts!”

Patsy was of the greatest use. He was at the studio almost as much as we ourselves. He devoted himself to the humbler guests if there happened to be some great personage to whom J. had to attend.

“It’s a good thing to have friends in every calling,” said Patsy; “you never know just when they may come in handy.” I had reproached him for neglecting lovely Donna Beatrice for old Checco, the proprietor of the Concordia restaurant.

“Checco has given me credit many a time when it would have gone hard with me to get a meal anywhere else!” he said.

On the eighth of February a note came from the Marchese Guiccioli, Queen Margherita’s gentleman-in-waiting. The superscription, Casa della Regina Madre, set the whole house in a flutter. Eugenio, the porter, himself brought the royal messenger up in the lift. Agnese, who took the letter from him, came hurrying to the terrace, where Ignazio and I were talking about the wall flowers.

“See to it,” I was saying, “that this thing does not happen again. You were paid a large price for these flowers, enormous sums were charged for concime (fertilizer) and they have done badly. Last season they were poor spindly little things, while those that sprang by chance from a crevice in the wall by the water pipe were a glory. Expound to me the reason of this absurdity.”

“Signora, how can I explain the laws of God? It is according to their nature. Those wall flowers that come up by chance without care always seem the fairest, perhaps because they grow beyond our reach. Those you speak of so abusively smelt like honey; you yourself complained that they attracted not only the butterflies but the bees from the priest’s hive.”

“A messenger from the Palazzo Margherita brought this.” Agnese offered the letter on the best silver tray she so rarely is willing to use. It is not well, she argues, that the first-comer should know we have such a valuable thing in the house, and use it so commonly. It might be stolen or, almost as bad, reported so that the tax for richezza mobile would be augmented.

“This letter is for the Signore,” I said.

“Without doubt—the Signora has reason—but being of so much importance she will open it?”

“Certainly not.” Agnese and Ignazio were burnt up with curiosity about the letter; they could hardly wait till J.’s return. Lorenzo, who had followed Agnese, is more canny though quite as curious.

“Imbeciles! don’t you know that to break the seal of a letter from the Casa Reale is an offense? I know perfectly well what it contains; as I see you are beside yourselves with curiosity, I will tell you that—you too shall know in good time!”

J. had gone for a walk along the Tiber to the Ponto Milvio; he returned sooner than I expected. Eugenio, panting with suspense, had pursued and brought him back. The letter brought the news that Queen Margherita would come to the studio the next afternoon. As we were already in apple-pie order, there was nothing for Lorenzo to do but put fresh laurel branches in the vases and add a little polish to the “Queen’s Chair.”

Punctually to the minute the royal carriage drew up at the door of the Studio Corrodi. The servants on the box were dressed in dark colors,—the splendid scarlet liveries, alas! are Queen Margherita’s no longer; they are only worn by the servants of the reigning Queen. J. received her Majesty at the carriage door and escorted her up the marble stair to the big new studio. What a contrast to the dear old studio with the ancient courtyard, the murmuring fountain hundreds of years old, the water-worn stones dark with ages, where the maiden-hair fern grows in great feathery tufts! It all came back to me with a sudden rush of memory, as I followed the Queen up the wide white marble stair. I saw the two long flights of hollowed travertina steps that led to the old studio, the uneven brick floor, the window that gave on the court, where the falcon and the white doves from the Vatican lived, the birds of whose wings J. made such endless studies for the Hours in his “Triumph of Time.” How many hours, months, years, had flown by since we three last met!

Queen Margherita walked across the polished floor with the light step of a girl, and quite naturally, without prompting, took her place in the “Queen’s Chair.” The social temperature rose—we felt as children for whom “the party has begun.” How does she do it? That’s her secret, she could not tell us if she would. She is one of those rare beings who bring their own sunshine with them, whose presence warms us to the heart’s core! We hold out our hands towards the kindly glow, as we stretch chilled fingers to a cheerful fire.

“It’s because she’s all there!” Patsy said afterwards, trying to explain what we had all felt. After one quick glance about the studio, the royal visitor fixed her eyes on the big canvas.

“This is your Diana of the Tides for the new museum at Washington?” she said to J. “A fine opportunity; I congratulate you. At what height will it be placed, at what distance will it be seen?”

Her questions about the Diana, and the building it was painted for, were direct and to the point. She showed the closely trained mind of a woman used to dealing with many kinds of affairs, of giving instant and undivided attention to the matter in hand. “She was all there,” as Patsy put it. There was a great lesson in the power of concentration she showed. She is a busy active woman; every hour, each quarter of an hour of every day has its appointed duty. We had a sense that she took them up one by one with the same whole-hearted earnestness that made every word she said worthy to be graven on our memories. After she had looked a long time at the Diana, she walked across the studio to the easel with the portrait of the old Chieftainess. J. told her something of her life and work, and referred to the story that appeared a few days before in the Tribuna. In a recent speech before the Circolo Italiano of Boston, my mother had snapped out this witticism:

“The American Eagle came out of the egg of Columbus.”

The mot so delighted the Italians that it was quoted by the Italian press all over the world.

“What a beautiful old age!” sighed the Queen Mother, as she looked at the portrait of the woman who has been called in Boston’s Little Italy, “La Nonna degl’ Italiani.”

“You have painted a portrait of old age as it ought to be,” Queen Margherita continued; with that smile of hers, a little graver than of old but with the same piercing sweetness.

“Remember that,” murmured Patsy. “She hits the nail on the head every time; that’s the reason she has done so much for her generation. Come to think of it, they are two of a kind; both have served greatly and been greatly rewarded!” He looked from the face of the portrait on the easel to the face of the royal lady who stood before it.

“Your portrait of Il Povero Re,” said the Queen Mother to J., “has changed color. I am troubled about it. I fear it may be because I always take it with me from Rome to Gressoni every year. I fear the jarring may have hurt it.”

It was arranged then and there that J. should call upon the Countess Villamarina, the Queen Mother’s companion, and see what was wrong with his portrait of King Umberto. We all went down to the carriage; the Queen Mother shook hands with us all graciously, and promised she would come again to the studio some day.

We watched the landau with the sober liveries drive away. Across the Tiber the regiment of Philippus was returning to the barracks, after rifle practice at the Tor di Quinto. The gay notes of the royal march sounded joyously; the proud horses of the royal landau arched their beautiful necks—it was as if they recognized the music and tried to keep step to it.

Three days later, on the twelfth of February, we were waked at half past seven in the morning, with the news that the King would be at the studio in an hour. He came in an automobile with two aides, an admiral and a general. They all wore uniform and looked very smart and well turned out. Agnese and I watched them from the terrace (the studio is opposite the palazzo where we live). I was not allowed to go to the studio; Athol and J. decided it would not be suitable, the visit being so early and of so informal a nature; I was, of course, dreadfully disappointed. Lorenzo was there to open the door; he apparently managed to leave it ajar, for he gave me an account of the visit.

“His Majesty speaks every language as if it were his own—they all do, it is a gift like another. It was most unfortunate for me, considering the Signore talks Italian, that they spoke in Ingerlish, which resembles—with respect, Signora—the chatter of monkeys. Something I understood, however, by observing their faces. His Majesty pointed to the horses; they interested him; has he not the finest horses in the world? Before his Majesty departed he inquired if he should write his name in the book. The Signore ran to turn over a virgin page; this his Majesty would not allow but wrote his name with all the others, just where it came naturally, when he could have had a whole page to himself. You can see for yourself what a fine big signature he has; he might well be proud of it, but he is not proud—nostro re! He handed the pen to the Signor Ammiraglio, saying—that I could understand for it was in Italian—‘See that you write your name better than I have written mine.’ On the table lay the photographs the Signore made at Messina; when his Majesty saw them he turned back. They studied all those terrible pictures of the ruins together, and they talked again in that language I do not understand.”

They stayed twenty-five minutes by the clock on the Castle Sant’ Angelo,—Agnese kept watch of the time; then they all came down to the street. The King shook hands with J., wrapped his long military cloak about him (the air was keen), and got into the motor. The porter and Lorenzo, standing very straight like soldiers on either side of the door, saluted. The porter’s wife, the little stepson and the new baby all leaned from the window over the door.

“Observe, observe, Signora mia, his Majesty smiles, he is pleased,” whispered Agnese, all in a flutter. “Ah, what a good kind heart!”

The motor flashed past the Palazzo Frankenstein, and Agnese and I came down “to hear all about it.” Coffee for all hands was demanded and furnished forthwith. In the kitchen Lorenzo, Eugenio and Agnese talked for an hour about the King’s visit. All I could get out of J. was the last precious sentence of the interview:

“When I thanked him for the honor of the visit, King Victor said, ‘Not at all, my mother told me to come.’ His English is beautiful, just like Queen Margaret’s.”

“The Signorina with the bright eyes, who lives in the handsome villino,” Agnese began, “asks if the Signora can use her carriage today. That fat beast, her coachman, is very avaricious, he will expect a mancia of three francs—still if we employ Napoleone, it will cost more—besides with a private carriage se fa più figura.”

“As to making a good appearance, that’s of no consequence; the Signorina’s carriage, however, has better springs than Napoleone’s, rubber tires as well. What didst thou say?”

“As the Signora was occupied I said yes, with tante grazie, and combined that the ‘milor’ should come at two o’clock. The afternoons are short; as the mancia must be paid, it is better to have one’s money’s worth.” Agnese wears thirty-two flawless pearls in her mouth—as she said these things she showed them all to me with the guileless smile of an infant.

Could it be by chance that Vera’s carriage was offered for this particular day? Impossible! Besides, Agnese knows I never go out till four. I have to believe in miracles, such miraculous things happen. Can it be that Agnese works the oracle? Basta! best not lift the veil from such comfortable mysteries. We were booked to call on the Marchesa Villamarina at half past two o’clock; we had spoken to no living soul of this, and here was a fat coachman, a fine coach and pair coming to take us in state to the palace of the Regina Madre. If our very walls have ears, if our correspondence is tampered with, the result is fortunate—let us accept the “milor” the gods send us!

We drove up sunny Via Veneto, through the Ludovisi quarter, past the smart hotels that have sprung up near the Palazzo Margherita—the Savoy, Regina, Palace, half a dozen more named out of compliment to the Queen Mother. If the sacrifice had to be made, the beautiful Villa Ludovisi cut up into house lots, transformed into the fashionable quarter of Rome, the great winter watering place, it’s a little comfort that the best site now serves for the site of Queen Margherita’s palace.

“Do you remember the violets that used to grow here?

“I can smell them now!”

“It’s hard to forgive that vandalism, even if building lots were necessary.”

Other things are necessary; the cool shade of ancient cedars, their resinous breath at hot noontide, the plashing of water in moss-grown fountains, the rustle of birds at nesting time, the carpet of anemones beneath immemorial trees, the laurel and asphodel that once grew here in the garden that was Sallust’s, that has been sacred ground to poet and artist from Horace’s time to Crawford’s.

Palazzo Margherita faces Via Veneto with its smug hotels; behind the palace lie a few roods of ground, a shrunken splendor, the last vestige of the noble Villa Ludovisi. Here are shadowy walks between gnarled ilex trees, and a few old statues, the last of a great company. A high wall shuts off the Queen’s garden from the Via Sallustiana, on the left; at the back on the Via Boncompagni, the wall is surmounted by a balustrade with antique amphorae etched with a fine network of black and yellow stains. Perhaps they once held the wine that served at Sallust’s banquets—it was of the best, Falernian perhaps.

“A pleasant drive to you!” Herr Schmidt, at the door of his hotel, bowed and smiled. A gong clanged behind him; a crowd of porters in green baize apron and pages in buttons rushed from within, as the big hotel omnibus, covered with travelers’ luggage, crowded with tourists, drew up at the entrance.

“Isn’t he a type with his automobile, his big wife wearing the old Orsini diamonds?” I murmured.

The Roman hotel-keeper today is a far more important personage than the poet and artist he has ousted from their garden of delight, the lovely Villa Ludovisi. If he were really a Roman, it wouldn’t matter so much; but nine times out of ten he is a German or a Swiss. Herr Schmidt is a very rich man and much considered, while Enrico, the painter, who used to spend long delicious days sketching in the Villa—Enrico, who loves and paints the Campagna Romana as it has never been painted before—Enrico’s coat is threadbare as Martial’s only toga.

“Are you asleep?”

“No, only dreaming.”

“Wake up, we’re there.”

We were expected; the sentries at the gate allowed the fat coachman to drive the “milor” into the courtyard.

“The last time we were here together was at a dinner of Mrs. Draper’s,” J. reminded me. When General Draper was American ambassador he lived here, as did his predecessor, Mr. Wayne MacVeagh; in those days it was called the Palazzo Piombino. After the death of King Umberto the palace became the Roman residence of the Queen Mother.

A picturesque person in plush breeches, wearing a silver chain of office, received and showed us up the grand staircase. No mean economy of space or height here, or in the long corridor with the marble doorways; our palace builders at home must study Roman interiors as well as Italian gardens.

“Don’t you remember the MacVeaghs’ ball and Queen Margherita walking through this corridor with the Ambassador?” J. asked.

“Of course; she wore a blue brocade dress and her incomparable pearls; it all comes back to me. King Umberto was in uniform; he carried a helmet with white plume under his arm. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Francis Adams were here. Do you remember the Austrian diplomat’s fascinating court dress? And that Russian military attaché in Cossack uniform with a black patch over one eye?”

“Yes, what a hero you thought him till I told you his poor eye had been knocked out by a careless woman’s umbrella.”

The Marchesa Villamarina received us in the room where Mrs. MacVeagh used to give tea. As we sat talking, we heard a merry little scream of dismay; the Marchesa, excusing herself, hurried to the next room. Then we heard a laugh like a silver chime.

“It’s her voice,” I whispered.

In a moment the Marchesa returned, smiling and merry.

Queen Margherita, her eyes bright with laughter, received us in her library. The Queen’s dress was like the plumage of a silver pheasant; dress is a fine art with her. You never know what she has on, but you always know it is the perfect thing for the hour. The library is an immense apartment, even for Rome, full of color and atmosphere. It suits her as the background in a Velasquez portrait suits the central figure. The highest point of light was a blaze of yellow azaleas on the mantel. There was no senseless bric-a-brac, but every article of furniture was a gem. One who reads the character of a person from the room he or she lives in, would guess that this was the home of a woman of taste and of action; it was comfortable rather than luxurious; there was nothing of the “dreadful too much.” On the walls hung a few pictures, among them J.’s Dante in Exile. On the writing table stood his portrait of King Umberto. J. saw in a moment what had happened to it. The portrait is a silver-point drawing. When these are first made their color is very like a pencil drawing; with time the silver becomes oxidized, and turns darker, the tone improving every year till it becomes a rich soft tarnished color. While J. was explaining this to Queen Margherita, the Marchesa told me what had been the matter.

“In writing her name upon the photograph her Majesty designed to give you, she had the misfortune to upset the ink.”

“She too? Is she so human?”

“It is because her Majesty is so human,” said the Marchesa, “that one has that adoration for her.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

“I’ve had a letter from Belknap,” said J. a few days after this, “asking me to go back to Messina with him.”

“You’re not going?” I cried.

“Of course he is,” said Vera. She was playing ball with Patsy on the terrace.

“I can’t bear it; besides you must finish your Pan.’

“Your father would have gone.”

There was nothing for me to say to that.

“Take me with you,” said Patsy.

“And me!” cried Vera, all on fire.

“I can’t take you; but there’s nothing to prevent your all making a trip to Sicily. You have always wanted to—” he looked at me. “This is your chance, a little later though—it’s such a cold season.”

“How can he be so keen about getting back to that awful place?” I exclaimed.

“It’s because there is so much more work to do there than there ever was in the world before,” said Vera. “Every one who has been down feels the same way.”

“You have said it!” This from Patsy, the golden butterfly. “A man’s happiest when he’s working to the limit, when there’s not one minute of time left in the day to get a grouch on!”

“What have you to say about it?” said Vera, looking at J.

“I would rather have had this letter than a big commission; we may start any day. You will see the Q.’s? Bonanno is sure to ask news of them,” J. went on.

“Let’s go now,” said Vera. “The Q.’s are far the most interesting of your profughi.”

There was still time before sunset, so Vera and I, escorted by Patsy, started to walk to the Q.’s. We crossed the Tiber, pausing on the bridge to watch the soldiers, maneuvering the big awkward pontoons on the river above, the part that makes the curve of the S. It was a gorgeous afternoon; the air was golden, sparkling, full of life.

Patsy quoted. “I bet that was written in Rome!”

On the Lungo Tevere a young officer passed, riding a spirited bay.

“Look out!” cried Patsy warningly. Vera, startled by the prancing horse, sprang aside; the officer saluted.

“It’s Philippus!” I cried, as the bay danced along sidewise like a skittish crab.

“Whoever he is, he ought to give that beast more work and less corn!” Patsy flicked the dust the bay had kicked up from his sleeve.

“No matter about the dust; he’s alive! We shall all be dust soon enough.”

Patsy left us at the gate.

Although there was a nip in the air, we found old Count Q. in the garden.

“Babbo sits out whenever he can,” said Rosalia, oldest of the Count’s seven remaining daughters. “Since the earthquake he knows no peace within.”

When I told them J. was going to Messina, the Count’s drawn face changed; he began to sob pitifully. Rosalia, a faded beauty with tragic eyes (she had lain beneath the ruins of their house at Messina for twenty-four hours), put a finger to her lips.

“Speak not of Sicily, I pray!” she whispered, “though in truth he thinks of nothing else. He dreams each night the house is falling.”

The Count is seventy years old, and paralyzed. His house was destroyed with his oldest son’s next door. For days he heard his son’s voice and his little grandchildren’s calling for help. They were buried so deep that when help came it was too late. One of the granddaughters was the girl of the emerald scarab ring Bonanno told us of.

“How goes on the sewing?” I asked Rosalia.

“Famously; a thousand thanks for the machine. All the cotton is made up. The parents now sleep between sheets; we others shall have that luxury soon.”

The Countess and her daughters had worked early and late, making bed linen and underclothes of the cotton cloth sent by our committee. I asked Rosalia if there was any message for Bonanno.

“Tell the Signor Avvocato that we are more fortunate than many—God has sent us friends,” she said. “Would the Signore have the infinite kindness to carry him a little notepaper, of the most miserable kind, a few envelopes? His last letter was written on a bit of paper torn from the wall. I am sure he has done everything—but if he would write to mamina and set her mind at rest—tell her the graves are marked, that she will know in which each of them lies—Nonna, Maddelena, Nina?”

“All this shall be related to the avvocato without fail. Courage, remember, look forward, not back!”

“Altro! It is what I most desire.” Rosalia fought back the tears. We left her, smiling bravely, at her post beside the poor old paralyzed father.

“Did you ever see a handsomer family?” I asked Vera as we walked away. “Rosalia is still fine, the next four are pretty as pinks, the two youngest real beauties. Which is that at the window? I can’t tell them apart.”

“Not since they’ve begun to smile? That’s the youngest, Beatrice—watch for the dimple when she laughs.”

“Wherever did she get that smart toggery?”

“Some of you soft-hearted Americans! She was lovely in her big black hat, the latest fashion. Can any of them do anything to earn money?”

“They could not earn a centesimo among them all. The Count owned a lot of valuable real estate in Messina; they lived on their rents. In the end something surely will be saved; you can’t wipe out real estate. Such pretty girls are sure to marry.”

“If you had only seen it all, you would understand—it’s chaos! It will take years, a generation perhaps, before things can be straightened out. Meanwhile ‘it is not always May.’”

“But Beatrice and the other little one—They are lovely!”

“Beauty is a poor dote—young kittens soon make old cats! No, cara mia, they have no chance. You Americans can’t understand: you are still primitive. The American carries off his wife as the Indian his squaw. You are at the natural selection stage.”

“Well, we have been—“

“The man assumes the responsibility of the woman’s support?”

“As a rule!”

“It’s bad form for a man to ask a dowry or allowance from the girl’s father?”

“The unpardonable sin.”

“I know; my brother married an American. Her father gave her an allowance, but when she died he never offered to pay her funeral expenses—his own child. We thought this unfeeling—dreadful! Americans tell me it probably never occurred to him.”

“We think it is far better for young people to make their own way,” I maintained.

“The parents who bring a child into the world,” Vera argued, “especially a female child, are responsible for her support. When she marries, they are bound to settle the largest sum upon her they can afford. They must make a sacrifice for their child.”

There is a sort of finality about a disaster like the Q.’s that we Americans can hardly conceive of; with us failure so often spells success. If a young man’s father is ruined, we say of him (we are beginning to say it of his sister)—“This gives him a chance to show the stuff he’s made of!”

After leaving Vera I went back to the terrace, to watch the sun set over Mons Vaticanus. Ignazio was there before me, grafting a new American Beauty rose on the stem of the big Banksia.

“You have three sisters, Ignazio,” I began. “You have told me your father is dead.”

“And in Paradise, I trust, this long time; I have not grudged masses for his soul.”

“A good son! How did he leave his money? Did your sisters have dowries?”

“He divided his money into two parts—my mother already being in glory. A little more than half he left to me, the only son. That was right, for so the greater part of the property remains in the casa paterna. The other half he divided between my three sisters. The oldest went into a convent; it was her wish, you understand. Her share was paid just as if she had married. The second espoused a vignerolo and invested her money in a new vineyard; they have prospered. The little one, Teresina, would go to the convent, where was Maria, the oldest. But that one, she is intelligent, fine, very fine, sent Teresina a letter—God knows how she managed it—telling her on her life not to come to that convent. Soon Teresina found a husband, a baker; he has a good business. Teresina has given him plenty of mouths to feed, three boys and five girls. That is better than a convent. Yes, I believe in the good God, Signora; I am not a free mason, nor an anarchist, but I think a girl can serve Him as well in the world, and far more pleasantly, than in a convent.”

“You have a daughter?”

“With respect, I have four. No convent for them; it is worse than a prison! If my daughter went to a prison I might see her again; but to a convent, never—it is finished.”

“You will give your girls a good dowry.”

“I am a poor man, times are hard, that fellow Cesare, my assistant, is a thief—the Signora knows it—but something I shall do for them.”

Poor Rosalia, poor Beatrice! Who would “do” for them? As Vera said, the Q.’s were my most interesting profughi. That good Samaritan, Miss Jane Sedgwick, found them soon after they came to Rome. When she first saw them, they were living in one dreadful dark room; the whole family sat like statues of stone around that dismal hole; the old Count’s dreadful sobbing was the only sign of life they gave. A pitiful smile dawned on the mother’s face when Miss Sedgwick drew out a fifty-franc bill. Here was a visitor who did more than ask questions and write down answers, a committee that committed itself—recklessly perhaps, but effectively—that justified itself not by its statistics but by its work.

On the twentieth of February, J. departed with his chief, Captain Belknap, for Messina, and I was left to devote myself to my profughi. Before he started we went to take leave of Mr. and Mrs. Griscom; happily we found them at home.

“Don’t you need a suit of clothes?” her Excellency asked J. as she gave him a cup of tea.

“I need several; most of mine have been given away.” He glanced at me. “I must make out with what’s left though—I don’t look too shabby for Messina?”

“The idea! It’s only that—I have a tailor—he makes really very well—I thought you might order a suit—“

“Do, I beg!” interrupted the Ambassador. “That Sicilian tailor has made me six suits already—I can’t use any more—he makes too well—they’ll never wear out!”

“How is your plumber doing?” asked Mrs. Griscom.

“Not so well as your tailor. He can’t follow his trade in Rome; if I could only send him to America, where plumbing is a fine art and takes the place of bric-a-brac!”

“And the new baby?” How could she remember that Lucia Calabresi had a baby!

Though aching to go to Sicily, Patsy remained in Rome to help me with my profughi. I had some of my “cases” from Countess Pasolini, some from Miss Noble Jones (her brother, our old friend Wallace Jones, was once Consul at Messina), others I read of in the papers. Patsy was studying counterpoint with a professor of music, Dante with a professor of literature, Arabic with a professor of Oriental languages—all late of the University of Messina.

“The professors and schoolmasters are having the roughest time of all,” he declared. “The devil and the lawyers look after their own. The avvocatos and the medicos all over Italy have organized to help their fellows—but these poor teachers!” He had just ferreted out a new professor and family. “They receive one franc and a half a day from the general committee—that keeps the breath of life in ’em—but the father, the only one capable of earning a soldo, has to stand in line and wait for hours every day to draw the money. If you could have seen their room! I spent those two hundred francs on chairs, beds and blankets. ‘Who gives promptly, gives twice,’ Mr. Parrish says. Isn’t he a corker? Don’t let ’em get discouraged—that’s his argument; it’s the delay that breaks their hearts. Those who have the stuff left in them ought to be kept hard at work, nose to the grindstone.”

Mrs. Griscom’s Ladies’ Auxiliary was the best committee I ever served on because it had the least red tape. Like the old vigilantes of the West, it was created for an urgent need, lived a short life with the maximum of work, the minimum of talk. My colleagues, Mesdames Samuel Abbott, Winthrop Chanler, and Nelson Gay, worked each according to their lights, meeting with the Ambassadress from time to time to compare notes and vote supplies. The work was quietly done, with little fuss or feathers. Every soldo was well spent, and passed direct from the treasury to the sufferer. Jane Sedgwick and Luella Serrao were my right and left hand (Luella is the widow of our dear Teodoro, for years the lawyer of the Embassy, always the friend of the Americans in Rome), Patsy was my flying Mercury, Elinor Diederich took the Q.’s and other profughi under her wing.

Luella had a patriarchal family from Bagnara in her care, an old man and woman with a screed of children and grandchildren. She had been telling me about them one afternoon as we were walking together; just as we turned out of the Piazza Venezia, into the Via Nazionale, a clear voice hailed us:

“Mia grande Signora!” Luella, delicate as a windflower, paused. A great gaunt woman, wearing a black kerchief over her head and a quaint short skirt, stood before us. She touched her fingers to her lips; then with the graceful Oriental gesture stooped and touched the hem of the “grande Signora’s” garment, and passed on.

“That was Sora Clara from Bagnara,” Luella explained. “She was discharged from the hospital yesterday.”

We were now passing the fine old palace of the Preffetura. “How well I remember coming to see you there!” I said, looking at the stern façade, “when the Prefect had that stroke of apoplexy. It was said the nursing of his American daughter-in-law saved his life.”

“Strange you should speak of that!” said Luella. “Pietro Ceccatiello, the young clerk who helped me so much, has been in my mind all day. After we left the Preffetura, Pietro went to Messina and married. He had a good position as an impiegato. We have all been anxious about him since the earthquake. The other day my brother-in-law, walking through a hospital at Naples, heard some one call, ‘Signor Rudolfo!’ He went up to the bed the voice came from, but the patient was so bandaged he did not recognize him. ‘Don’t you know me?’ the man cried. ‘I am Ceccatiello.’ ‘We feared thou wast killed,’ said Rudolfo, and put out his hand to take Pietro’s. The poor fellow held up two maimed swathed stumps. Then he told his story: after the earthquake Pietro found that he, his wife, and child, though little hurt, were buried, sotto le macerie, three metres deep. They could not make themselves heard; they could find nothing to dig with. With his two naked hands Pietro dug his way out of that living tomb, saved his wife and child. His fingers were literally worn away. The hands had to be amputated at the wrist, with one foot that had been crushed.”

We sent Pietro three hundred francs of American money. The messenger who took it to him warned us not to give money again to those in hospitals, but to wait rather till they were discharged.

“The miserable one in the next bed to Pietro, who was quite as badly hurt, wept because I had no money for him—invidia (envy)!”

I told Vera and Patsy Pietro’s story that evening. Vera’s jewelled hands flashed as she hid her face in them.

“I can’t bear it!” she cried, as if she felt the loss of Pietro’s hands in hers. “What was that you said to Rosalia—‘look forward, not back’? Remember the English verse Athol taught us.”

“Right!” cried Patsy, “look for the silver lining. If every cloud had one, it’s this that darkens Italy!”

Let us turn the cloud about, dwell no more on Italy’s anguish unparalleled, but on the silver lining, the love and help her sisters lavished upon her. If we dwell most upon our country’s share, it is because we know more of it—not to set it above the others.

The minutes of the meeting of the Ladies’ Auxiliary (I was the Secretary), held January 9th, contain this entry:

“Mr. Parrish gave an account of an interview with Signor Nathan, the Syndic of Rome, who expressed the opinion that if the American Committee had a considerable sum of money at its disposal, it could best be invested in buying lumber and building houses in the devastated districts.”

That was the seed,—a good seed that bore fruit. By far the most important work done by America for the earthquake sufferers was the building of these houses in the devastated districts. In this enterprise our Ambassador proved worthy of his high office, of the great trust imposed upon him; from the moment the plan was decided upon, he devoted every ounce of energy to furthering it both at home and abroad. The details of his work do not properly belong to those outside the magic circle of diplomacy; his was a labor of Hercules—only the old Greek hero had seven labors, and the young American, seventy and seven. He was fortunate in having Captain Belknap to carry out the practical part of the work.

It was to help Belknap that J. left his studio, the terrace where the tromboni were blowing their golden trumpets, and the bees from the priest’s hive hummed in and out the wall flowers. Patsy and I stayed in Rome, worked for our profughi, played with our flowers. The Andalusian carnations, sent from Spain by our friend Don Jaime, were an intense interest. It seemed at first they would die; with the first touch of the March sun, they took heart of grace and decided that life was worth while, even for an Andalusian transplanted to Rome.

Ignazio’s bills had been growing heavier and heavier every month; he had not grafted the promised number of innesti on the roses; there were other small grievances. In a moment of exasperation I resolved to put an end to these things. I surprised him early one morning as he was changing the earth of the big azalea; he was on his knees, patting the rich brown loam about the roots.

“Ignazio,” I began firmly, “the time has come when we must part.”

He shook the earth from his slim fingers, sprang to his feet, agile as a faun, and fixed me with his clear hazel eyes.

“E vero? This is a fount of sorrow to me! Where might your Excellency be going?”

“It is not I who am going.”

“Si capisce! The Signora will soon join the Signore? Let her be at ease; everything will go on as if she were at home. Behold the primole the Signora has asked for these many years! They are not a garden flower, therefore it was extraordinarily difficult to obtain these wild things. With infinite labor I got them from the guardiano of the Villa Caprarola, where they cover the hills like a weed.”

This was my last attempt to part with Ignazio; whatever else is fleeting, he is permanent. To cover my defeat, I changed the subject and asked him what he knew of the Sicilians.

“I am from upper Italy, a Sienese; I have naught to do with those of the south; I do not say there are not brave people among them but they have too hot blood. They all go armed too, even the women; I have proof of it—” he glanced half consciously at a scar on his wrist; when he spoke again an odd note of resentment had crept into his voice, a shadow into eyes clear as a forest brook. “We who have nothing but our two arms—or at best a little gingillo of a knife, so long, what can we do against them? Nothing! It is best to keep away from them, to have nothing to do with them—enough, I have said it!”

“Un soldo! Eh! Signore, un soldo!” The brown boy, naked as the day he was born, threw up his right arm with that graceful gesture of asking that makes it hard to deny the Neapolitan beggar anything.

“Give me the valise, Signore; there is no danger of its getting wet,” said Antonio, the boatman, an old friend; J. knew him by his gold earrings and the red scar on his cheek.

“Un soldo!” the boy implored. J. tossed a coin into the water; the boy dived for the money, caught it before it was ten feet below the surface, and came up snorting like a young grampus, the soldo in his cheek, his arm raised in that irresistible gesture.

“Basta!” cried Antonio, bending to his oars. There is war to the knife between him and the diver, a share of whose profits he demands. “To the American war-ship, Signore? Off to Messina again? I would not go in your place!”

The boat shot out from the Immacolatella and past the small steamer bound for Ischia, while J. counted his packages. They were pursued by a boatload of musicians, singing “Santa Lucia.” From the shore came a whiff of fried fish, just enough to whet the appetite.

“The ‘Celtic’ is close in shore, I believe,” said J., “I suppose I must give you a franc.”

“Four miles at least, Signore.” Antonio paused in his rowing; “To another it would be five francs, but we are old acquaintances, let us say three.”

In six minutes they were alongside the “Celtic,” anchored less than half a mile away. It was already seven o’clock when J. came on board. He was received by his chief, Captain Belknap, then turned over to the care of the ship’s doctor and made welcome by the officers at dinner in the ward-room. Later he was introduced to Captain Huse, in command of the “Celtic,” then took a few turns up and down the deck, just to make sure that Vesuvius was in his old place across the bay, that the sleeping Queen Capri still slept on the face of the waters; by four bells he was ready to sleep. The doctor showed him where he was to bunk. There were already four of them in the “sick bay,” up among the Jackies; not that any of them were ill, but because it was the only corner on the ship where there was a place to stow them. Belknap had written Captain Huse that he and his man were quite prepared to rough it and, if need be, could sleep between decks. The “Celtic” is a U. S. supply ship carrying about one hundred and forty men, and bow and stern guns; her officers’ quarters are small, but somehow Captain Huse made Belknap’s party very comfortable. J.’s bunk was in the sick bay, along with Lieutenant Allen Buchanan, Ensigns Wilcox and Spofford and Dr. Martin Donelson, all of our navy. The rest of the party (thirty-four petty officers and enlisted men from the U. S. S. “Scorpion”) were stowed in different parts of the ship; the chart-house was assigned to Belknap.

They all slept well. The next morning, as there was only space for one to dress at a time, J., the last comer, lay in his berth waiting his turn. He heard a familiar voice outside, and caught a glimpse of Hugh, the Yeoman, squatting on the slippery iron deck, talking with a machinist come on board that morning to join the Messina party.

“We was to Suez on the ‘Culgoa’ long about the end of December,” Hugh was saying, “when we got a message from Roosevelt to get up steam and push through to Messina, and give them all the food and clothing we could spare. We had a thousand loaves ready when we sailed into that Lord-forsaken place! We let it down to ’em in nets. We been hanging around these parts ever since.”

The machinist asked a question. The Yeoman’s answer was energetic:

“Sure! Didn’t you know? Roosevelt is sending out wood to build three thousand houses for these Eyetalians, and we’re the Johnnies that’s going to build ’em. Did you ever hear the likes o’ that? Ain’t he a wonder!”

Later in the morning J. went on shore with the doctor, in search of sheets and towels. He was much chagrined that he had not brought his own, and I that I had not sent them—we shall know better next time. They left Naples that afternoon, and early the next morning (the 22nd of February) the “Celtic,” her white sides shining, her rigging gay with bunting in honor of Washington’s birthday, sailed through the Straits and into the harbor of Messina. As they approached the Faro, the officers gathered on the poop deck. Belknap’s keen eyes, sailor’s eyes that see so much more than others, scrutinized the water-front.

“Things are waking up!” he said. “There’s a schooner taking on a cargo of lemons! That tramp steamer is discharging lumber.”

Half a dozen ships lay in the old harbor of Zancle, unloading all manner of building materials. Yes, trade had come back to the indispensable city, as it always has done after every earthquake since the one that frightened Ulysses and the Greeks of his time; the ancients made stories and myths about that earthquake that still delight us. Ulysses landed in Sicily, you remember, with twelve of his men and entered the cave of Polyphemus, a terrible one-eyed giant who tended his giant sheep on the slopes of Mt. Etna, the burning mountain that stood over the workshop of Vulcan; you can see the smoke, sometimes the fire of the smithy, coming out of the hole at the top of the mountain to this day. The giant killed and ate six of the adventurers; he would have killed them all but for the crafty Ulysses, who made the Cyclops drunk and while he slept put out his single eye with a red-hot pole. Then Ulysses and his six remaining companions concealed themselves under the bellies of the giant sheep; and so, when Polyphemus let out his flock to graze, they escaped. (I myself have seen this adventure pictured in an ancient sculpture at Palermo.) When the Cyclops found his prisoners were gone, he roared with anger and pursued them, hurling great rocks after them; but being blind his aim was not good, and three of the boulders fell into the sea, where you can find them today by Aci Castello. One has a round hole like an eye, through which the sunlight shines as it once did through the single eye of the Cyclops. All this means that some Greek sailors “in the dim red dawn of man” really were caught in an earthquake and were so greatly frightened that their descendants not only made myths and legends about it, but remembered it.

Centuries after, when Theocles, the Greek merchant, drew up his little fleet of vessels on the

long sandy point that runs out into the sea below Taormina, and founded Naxos, the first Greek settlement in Sicily, they still talked about the troubles of Ulysses. The real danger of the island, these early adventurers said, was not the Sicans—they were a quiet agricultural people, no match for the clever Greeks—but Polyphemus, the Laestrygones, and Hephaestus. They were right; Sicily’s real danger now as then is the terrible volcanic force, to account for whose havoc the ancients created those dear giants and monsters, the Cyclops, the Titans, and a hundred others.

In the lovely crescent-shaped harbor that once was called Zancle (sickle), then Messana, now Messina, two large deserted fruit steamers lay swinging idly at their moorings. When there was so much for ships to do, it was strange to see these splendid freighters idle.

“To whom do they belong?” J. asked. Alfredo Brofferio, Tenente di Vascello, an Italian navy officer, detailed to help Belknap in his work, answered:

“To three little children. Formerly they were owned by a great firm. The partners were all killed; of their families only these infants survive. The ships may lie there till they rot—who knows if they will ever get up steam again?”

The “Celtic’s” great anchor splashed in the water, her cables sang as they slipped through the hawse-holes.

“Do you see that house?” Brofferio pointed to a mass of ruins on the Marina. “I lived there with my Signora and our children for two years. On the 22nd of December, six days before the earthquake, I was ordered away to sea. My wife decided to remain in Messina. ‘We are so comfortable here,’ she said, ‘the climate suits the children.’ So it was agreed. The night before I was to leave, there was a slight earthquake shock, but a mere nothing; we had often felt worse. I thought nothing of it. Women, however, feel things that we cannot—my wife said to me: ‘This is a warning; tomorrow morning the children and I will depart with thee for Naples,’ her very words. A sailor’s wife makes long journeys at short notice; we all left together. If she had not been so wise—“ Brofferio’s steady blue eyes grew troubled, “you see? Not one who lived in that house is alive today!”

The song of the sailor at the masthead broke the long silence that fell on the group.

“Today is a festa in your country.” Brofferio shook himself and pointed to the “Celtic’s” three flags and extra bunting; “a saint’s day?”

“Why, yes!” said J.; “you may call it so. Three years ago today I went down to the North End (Boston’s Little Italy) in search of Parmesan cheese; an Italian grocer at the corner of North and Cross Streets sells the real kind in solid nubbles, hard as a brickbat, not that paltry grated stuff in bottles. As I passed the Catholic church, I saw a poor Italian woman trying to get in. She knocked, pounded, even kicked the church door; but nobody paid any attention. Then she took off her fazoletto—from her dress she was Abbruzese—spread it on the church steps, knelt, folded her hands, and began to pray:

“‘O Santo Washingtone mio, non hanno aperto la chiesa’ (O my Saint Washington, they have not opened the church!), her prayer began. You see she added Saint Washington, the patron of her new country, to her Calendar of Saints; she had come to say a prayer, perhaps light a candle to him, but the church, open on all other saints’ days, was inexplicably closed on this!”

A boatload of Italian naval officers and port officials now came on board to offer the usual courtesies; Brofferio explained to them the reason for the “Celtic’s” three flags and extra bunting; soon after this all the Italian navy ships in the harbor hoisted their masthead flags.

“You see?” said J., “they too are celebrating the festa of Santo Washingtone!”

“And the weather?” Brofferio asked an Italian officer, “always the same?”

“You may say so! Per Bacco, this is the fifty-sixth day since the disaster; on forty-five of these blessed days it has rained as in the time of the deluge!”

“The Quartermaster reports a steamer standing in towards the harbor, flying the American flag and a white pennant with the words: ‘Headquarters of the U. S. Carpenters.’”

When he heard that, J. ran for his kodak, just in time to photograph the “Eva,” the first American lumber ship, as she dropped anchor close in shore.

“Gosh!” said Hugh, the Yeoman, scanning the “Eva’s” decks, “there are a couple of Boston cops aboard. Wonder who they’ve come for?” The American Carpenters’ uniform was very like the Boston policeman’s.

With the arrival of the “Eva,” we began to see the tangible results of all that telegraphing between America and Italy, the Ambassador’s despatches, Mr. Hooper’s appeal to Boston (never appealed to in vain), Mr. Parrish’s correspondence with Mr. Taft, President of the American Red Cross. They had not let the grass grow under their feet at home; when they understood that wood and building material for houses was what was most wanted in Italy, our people, acting through Congress and through the American Red Cross Society, “came up to the scratch” nobly, gave with two hands and never counted the cost. Here was the “Eva,” the first timber ship, as a living proof. No time, no expense, had been spared in fitting her out; as she lay alongside the dock in New York, the stevedores worked day and night, in double shifts, loading her with the good sweet-smelling Carolina pine. There was but one bitter drop in that cup; the “Eva” was a British steamer—when, oh, when shall we do our own carrying by sea?

Wednesday, February 23rd, though a drizzling rain was falling, the work of discharging the “Eva’s” cargo began at seven o’clock. Ensign Spofford was in charge of the men. He had a dozen “Scorpions” to help him discipline the shrieking, gesticulating mob of Sicilian stevedores and carters. The precious lumber, tools, glass, roofing paper, hardware, all the priceless materials for the American Village must be guarded from the poor homeless Messinesi, who thought they were only taking their own when they helped themselves. That first rainy day the task must have looked long and hard to officers and men. Belknap, fearful of demurrage, just touched them with his restless spur—it was enough, more than the rowelling of another—and they sprang with ardor to their task. The carts for transporting the lumber from the Marina were of every description, from gay little painted carretti to lumbering ox wains. The beasts of burthen included mules, carriage horses, saddle horses, infinitesimal donkeys. The carts must needs keep within hailing distance of each other, for the Viale San Martino, leading to the site of the future village, was a slough of despond, a sea of liquid mud. The poor animals floundered, the wheels sank hub deep in the dreadful mire. Time after time the beasts from three or four carts must be hitched to a wagon stuck in the mud.

The motley stream of carts, each under the guard of a “Scorpion,” crawled at a snail’s pace from the Marina, up the Viale San Martino, to the Valley of the Mosella, a lemon grove on the outskirts of the old city. The site assigned to the Americans (as beautiful a site as heart could wish) was on the farther side of the Torrente Zaera, a deep water course. At the Valley of the Mosella—usually called the Zona Case Americana—Lieutenant Buchanan, Ensign Wilcox and two American carpenters received the lumber. The Americans watched the leisurely Sicilians unload the first two carts.

“At this rate,” said Buchanan, “we shall pass the rest of our lives in Messina. Here, all you Scorpions!” Then followed an object lesson those Messinesi never forgot.

“Half a dozen of our sailor men,” writes Belknap, “led by Dougherty, the gunner’s mate, ran up and took possession of one of the carts; they tipped the load off sidewise in three shakes. The natives looked on and gaped a bit, but they took the hint and we had no further delay of that kind. Sometimes our sailors were even able to infuse into their gangs the spirit of a regular coaling-ship hustle.”

Later Belknap had the happy thought of presenting each carter with a ten centesimo piece at the end of every trip; it was wonderful how many more trips they managed to make after that. In a few days a contractor was found who furnished a set of fine solid carts, drawn by beautiful red Sicilian oxen; the work now went on rapidly. Friday night, forty-eight hours after the “Eva” hove in sight, the first American portable house was put together, and the frame of the first cottage was set up.

Gasperone, who found J. out the very day he reached Messina, hovered about the neat little yellow cottage with its green blinds, well-fitted doors and windows, its convenient handles and latches. He felt the even clapboards, rattled the handle of the door, tried the hinge of a shutter; then, running both his hands through his mop of hair, exclaimed:

“It’s a miracle! Piff, paff, two taps of a martello, and behold, a house!”

Saturday the rain, that till then had come in fitful showers, settled into the regular earthquake downpour to show what it could do. It was impossible for the carpenters to work under this deluge.

“Belknap didn’t let a little thing like that stop him,” writes J. “He put the Americans to work and in ten hours built the great workshed, sixty-four feet long, where from that time on, rain or shine, work was always going on.”

The different members of the party were now working with the regularity of the cogs of a well-oiled machine. Brofferio was busy making those official visits to the civil, military and naval authorities, which did so much to make everything run smoothly; from the first Brofferio knew no other duty than to serve the interests of the expedition to which he was attached; in this way he could best serve his country. Here, there, always where he was most needed, was Belknap. He and his men were from first to last smart in their dress, as if they had been on duty at Annapolis; that was one of the great lessons they taught the demoralized Sicilians. Neat, well set up, clean shaven, with spick-and-span linen, the Americans did their work, the work of giants it seemed to the slow Sicilians, and never for one moment was their discipline relaxed.

The chart-house of the “Celtic” became a sort of Box and Cox apartment. By night Captain Belknap slept there; by day J. stood at his drawing-board and worried out the plans for America’s part of the New Messina. His letter diary, written on odd scraps of paper, gives little flashes of side-light on the enterprise. On the 22nd of February he writes:

“I have just had breakfast; the coffee with rich American cream is a dream. I am having a glorious time designing a hotel. Tomorrow the ship arrives with the first lot of houses to be put up here. Mr. Billings, representing the Massachusetts Committee, (interesting man), and those two delightful men from Taormina, Bowdoin and Wood, that I met before, lunch on board.

“February 23rd: The first American timber ship, the ‘Eva,’ is dropping anchor at this moment close by. Tomorrow the real rush will begin. Everything is all so new on board a ship like this that I enjoy it thoroughly. I am treated like a king. I have been designing a little outside kitchen, a very primitive arrangement; I hope it will work.

“February 26th: I got up at six o’clock this morning and went ashore for the first time since we arrived. I have been drawing the plans for the houses, making working drawings and tracings, and literally have not had one moment to call my own. I made a photograph this morning of the first house, one of the forty-nine portable houses Massachusetts sent. I don’t want to quit this job till it’s finished and it’s only just begun. In a way it’s much harder work than the ‘Bayern’ because it’s head work. I have had to design an hotel two stories high, to remodel entirely the plans sent from America—a difficult task—to design a church on a primitive plan. The high altar end is to be in a little house but the main body of the church is to be roofed in only, no sides. I have in mind the ‘only place where the cannibals are!’ Do you remember the great shed in the Midway Pleasance at the Chicago World’s Fair, where the King of Dahomey sat? Chanler turned up this morning, lunched on board, and left this afternoon for Reggio with his little band. I was glad to see him, but quite glad he didn’t stay as that would have meant one more in our cabin, and we can only dress one at a time. I had to make a set of drawings for Chanler to take to Reggio to show the General; but after I had swatted for an hour and a half to get them finished for him, he went off and forgot them. Rome seems like a dream; I feel as if I had always lived on board ship!

“February? I think this is the last day of the month. I know it is Sunday, but all days are alike and all go so quickly. I literally have no time for anything unless I steal it as I am doing now. I never felt so sorry for architects before. It seems to me I have made hundreds of drawings (of course I haven’t) and all of them have to be changed either by the prefect, the Capo Ingegnere, the captain, or the carpenters; but it’s all in the day’s work. One cannot make such a good showing, however, when one drawing after another is either altered or discarded. I am sitting down to write this—the first time I have sat down, except to eat, since I came aboard. The sailors squat on the deck and write letters, using their knees as a desk. It looks all right but, as the decks are made of iron, one’s feet will slip away from one. Letter day on board is a sight to be seen. Remember that post cards have a peculiar fascination for sailor men, who haven’t been home since Lord knows when, many of them; we shipped a lot, forty or so, who were on their way home from the Pacific cruise, and brought them here. It’s blowing great guns, and all the ships are strengthening their moorings to keep from being blown into their neighbors. Hugh has just looked in to bring me a letter from you. Captain Belknap is in a hurry to get the hotel design finished. Most of the changes that are made are to save wood, so as to have enough to build with; but if rafters, composts, floor-beams, studs, and even sills, are cut out continually, a day’s work soon disappears in respacing them. I hope you will carry out your plan of coming down to Taormina. The hotels are all closing for lack of business, sending their guests to one (‘The Timeo’), and even that is not half full. You ought to see Sicily, you ought to get some idea of the earthquake’s work, for no matter how wild your idea may be, it will be tame beside the real thing. Wood and Bowdoin are at Taormina, working like slaves to relieve the villages between here and there—they suffered fearfully—and you could see and do much. We have had quite a lively time since I began this. It is blowing a gale and things are happening. Our anchor lost its hold and dragged until we were not more than six metres from the bows of the steamer alongside of us. I didn’t know anything out of the way was happening till I heard quick commands and sailor men running; when I looked out and saw they had sent the steam launch over to an Italian man-of-war with a hawser, which was made fast on board of her and the other end was hauled in by the donkey engine, and we were pulled away just in time to prevent a collision—how they did it all without my assistance, I can’t quite make out! They are getting over another anchor now for safety’s sake, and they will probably need it as the wind seems little inclined to quiet down. It’s very warm here; I haven’t worn my overcoat since the first day. I doubt if you will be able to see much of me if you come, but they will probably let me come to Taormina for a day. In about ten days we go ashore and live in the first twelve houses, and this ship goes away. The ship’s doctor went ashore and found a spring of water up a hillside near the camp, and it will be brought down in breakers every day, in a dear little painted donkey cart like the one I brought you from Palermo, and not so much bigger. The first bag of mail, sent on to Messina by the ‘Scorpion,’ was returned by the postal authorities here, hence the long delay in hearing from Rome.

“The next day, U. S. S. ‘Celtic,’ Messina: Nothing has happened since I wrote you except one rather severe earthquake, which I thought was the ice machine. I am making drawings for the whole outfit, and duplicates to send to various places where our wooden palaces are desired. I am at this moment supposed to be making three tracings and an entirely new scheme for an hotel. One is entirely worked out, with four bathrooms, capable of putting up a hundred people or more, with a great big dining-room and restaurant, thirty by forty feet, with all the kitchen quarters. I try to keep copies of the plans for you, but they are snatched away from me, naturally enough, as soon as they are finished. I am to have my innings in building the duckiest little kitchen you ever dreamt of and a whole carpenter to help me. Chanler blew over yesterday and lunched with us. In the evening he left for Naples on business; he returns in a couple of days; they all adore him.

“‘Celtic,’ next day: Chanler blew back from Naples at seven o’clock this morning, and went back to Reggio about an hour later. He is looking awfully well and is full of business. I am sending a film to the photographer to be developed of the first portable house, and another of the work-shop and houses in course of construction at the end of the first week. It has rained a great deal and Hooper’s rubber coat has been of immense use to me—tell him when you see him, and do show him the photos.

“March 6th: Mr. Bicknell, of the Red Cross, came today with his secretary, an avvocato, Donati by name. A Roman, of the real old Roman type, he looks like that bust in the Vatican, the one you always say is so modern—just like the sort of man who takes you in to dinner.

“Wednesday, March 9th: I don’t know how much longer I stay—if I see it through, it will be the first of May before I get away. I am terribly rushed as I have to get out a set of drawings for Queen Elena, of the houses we are to put up at her village. That is to say, I am arranging where they are to go. I took the Duca d’Ascoli, the Queen’s gentleman-in-waiting, over the land at the Villaggio Regina Elena yesterday. I am trying to get the drawings done for the Queen, and translating employment forms, and things happen every minute as well. I am well and happy and working like anything. The hotel is accepted. The Queen wants me to make designs for a schoolhouse for her; and I am trying to do it, but there are usually anywhere from two to four people in the chart-house, and I get my elbow poked just as I am almost successfully through an ink drawing.

“U. S. S. ‘Celtic,’ March 11, 1909: It’s 8.45 A.M. Belknap went over to Reggio this morning at seven and doesn’t get back till lunch time, and I have a great stunt before me. Saturday we go out to live in our first batch of twelve houses, which are finished. The water supply comes from a mountain stream, away above where the town supply comes from. It has been analyzed by the doctor (who goes with us) and piped by the ‘Celtic’s’ plumber to the camp. The work that has been undertaken is simply immense. The houses are spotting themselves over the surface of the earth, like flies on sticky fly-paper, as thick and fast. Yesterday was a tremendous day; I had to get out the hotel plan for the engineer, to give our estimate of how much wire would be needed for electric lighting of it, and the Duca d’Ascoli took off at five o’clock a bundle of drawings for Queen Elena; and all the time I was being joggled and jostled by people coming in and out, and many of them staying in the chart-house. I cannot imagine where you got the idea of cold. I wrote a long time ago that I had never had occasion to wear my overcoat since I came down, and it’s been very much in the way in these cramped quarters. Bill o’ the Bilge’s rubber coat has been my greatest boon; though I have sweltered in it, it has kept me dry. Twice we have had dinner on the quarter-deck; we did last night. Captain Huse gave a dinner for the Duca d’Ascoli, the

Captain of the Port and the Comandante of the Italian man-of-war. Ascoli sat on the captain’s right; we had a very jolly evening. About my getting away from here; it’s a question. I am just about to tackle the arrangement of the houses we are to build for the Queen’s village. I have worked out the hotel, special houses for Queen Elena, work-rooms, schools, a church for our own village here in Messina, on a modest plan that will fit the lumber we have at our disposition. The hotel will have seventy-six rooms apart from offices.

“March 14th: Our warship, the ‘Celtic,’ leaves here on Monday some time, but we go to the houses tomorrow. The ship only waits to give us a chance to find out if we need anything more. I have sent two rolls of photographs to be developed, the Villaggio Regina Elena and the U. S. village at the end of the second week’s work. There is a wall along the river bed, the Torrente Zaera, showing a water-pipe that brings the water to the cottages. It was turned on yesterday. I tried to get a photograph of the kitchen sink with the water running and the first jet of water. The others are of the American building work—I hope they will give you some idea of it. The most precious of all the snap-shots is the one of a church belfry with a clock, the hands pointing to the exact hour of the catastrophe. I call it the Tell Tale Tower. This is God’s own country in charge of the Devil. Do you know of any one like Flint or Thompson you could send down to help out, a good boss with some idea of method and system and accounts, who can speak Italian? I am so sorry Thompson can’t come. A divine day! I wish I had brought my light summer suit. I think we are going to be comfortable in the camp. Belknap thinks of everything; I never knew such a man!

“Monday, March 15th: We are just off for the camp on the Piano della Mosella. It is a glorious day but hot, though it is early, not yet ten. Last night we dined on board the Italian man-of-war, ‘Dandolo,’ and I send you one of the menus. They are all done by the sailor men and I thought would interest you. Did I tell you the Queen made a request that we build for her three hospitals—one in her own village, one at Messina and one at Reggio? I am expecting to get to work on the designs as soon as we get instructions from Mr. Griscom. You must not go away from Italy without coming here. Things move very rapidly and many of them at once!”

 

They move so rapidly that it’s breathless business trying to follow them. The work planned was roughly this: To build at Messina a village of a thousand houses with the necessary public buildings, hospitals, schools, church and hotel. The hotel was of vital importance. One of the worst features of the disaster was the fact that the brains of Messina had been practically wiped out. The people saved were largely of the working class, who are up early in the morning and who live in small houses. The great palaces of the rich proved fatal death-traps to most of them. The few business men of sense and energy left to cope with that unheard-of chaos had no place to sleep or eat at Messina. They were forced to live at Catania or Taormina, thus losing many precious hours on the long railroad journeys back and forth. Reggio, from the first the more fortunate of the two stricken cities, soon had a decent hotel lighted with electric light—a thing never before known in the ancient city the Romans called Rhegium, and Hugh, the Yeoman, spoke of as Riggio—but Reggio had Captain Cagni! Besides the village at Messina, the Americans had agreed to build a hospital and about one hundred houses at the Villaggio Regina Elena, a charming suburb on the other side of Messina, built by Queen Elena. At Reggio, another American village of one thousand houses was to be put up; on the Calabrian coast, in what is called the Palmi district, between Reggio and Scylla, five hundred houses were to be erected; and in the country between Taormina and Messina three hundred more, these last to be placed according to the advice of Messrs. Bowdoin and Wood, who ought to be classed with San Pancrazio, the patron saint thereabouts. These gentlemen had, and richly deserved to have, the forty-nine portable houses for their protégés. There is an impression at home that a far larger number of these admirable portable houses were sent than was the case. There were only forty-nine in all, sent by Massachusetts, who also contributed material for three hundred houses and much else besides.

The village in the Valley of the Mosella was

to be laid out in regular street blocks like any modern suburban district in America, each block to contain twelve houses. Belknap’s plan was to finish the first twelve houses, a kitchen and an ice-house, and as soon as possible take possession of them and establish the party in camp. In the corner of the central square the ice-house was dug and roofed over, and here they stored thirty tons of ice and provisions from the “Celtic,” enough to last three weeks. There was great rejoicing the day the water was put in. There was a shower bath in Buchanan’s house, running water in the kitchen sink and men’s washroom, and an outside faucet for general use. The waste water was led by a wooden pipe to the Torrente Zaera.

The fifteenth of March, three weeks after our builders arrived at Messina, they took possession of the camp. It was a glorious day; they were astir early on the “Celtic” packing their kits. J. watched the men put his drawing-board and portfolio safely on the ox-cart under Hugh’s care, and started to walk to the Mosella.

“In the street are a few miserable shops for foodstuffs,” J. writes. “I say street, but it is really only a passageway where the street used to be. On either side are mounds of debris with little groups of diggers, hunting for their relatives, with a soldier leaning on his gun with fixed bayonet beside some coffins. It was nearly midday; one party was using a coffin for a table and others as chairs—truly, familiarity breeds contempt. Not only this, but I saw little toddling babies put to play in them, to keep them out of harm’s way. One thing shows a wicked lack of forethought. Shelters have been built across the tram tracks, that have only been slightly damaged in one or two places. They make the entire route of the villages that have suffered, and ought to be put in operation immediately.”

Though he stopped to notice these things, J. reached the camp in time to see the pretty inaugural ceremony. At twelve o’clock the bugler from the “Celtic” sounded “attention.” Officers and men all assembled in line. The two civilians, Mr. Bicknell and J., hurried to the end of the workshop and adjusted their cameras. Belknap then read aloud a letter from the Prefect of Messina, the Commendatore Trinchieri, beginning:—

Tara, tara, tara! The bugler sounded the salute to the colors. The flag crept up the tall flagstaff and unfolded in the light breeze.

“Three cheers, men!” cried Buchanan. They were given with a will. “Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!”

There was a little speechmaking after this. J., busy with his kodak, only heard the rousing cheers as the Stars and Stripes, emblem of the world’s hope, floated over the new settlement on the old, old shore of Trinacria.

“Zona Case Americane, March 16, 1909.

“We left the ‘Celtic’ yesterday and came out here to our camp at the Mosella, where everything is running like clockwork. I have a pleasant room but no view, while the house where the nails are stored has a divine one. There’s no window in Belknap’s room; he chose the worst one of all so that no grumbler should have the right to kick,” writes J. in his first letter after they left the ship and the hospitable Captain Huse, of whose kindness frequent mention is made both in letters and diary.

The camp stood in a lemon grove fronting the Straits of Messina, where the whirlpool, Charybdis, darkens the sapphire water with streaks of violet. Across the narrow strip of sea to the left lay Scylla, directly opposite Reggio, the dark Calabrian mountains tipped with snow towering above. A more sublime view it would be hard to find, but our men did not stop

to look much at views, or to look back in fancy at the historical vista, the long line of heroes and conquerors who had landed in Sicily before them, and set up their camps with the same care to be within reach of a good spring of water. Of course they must have had some dim sense that they were living on classic ground, familiar to them in their school days. They knew, or had known then, that Ulysses and his men and the wandering Aeneas had been here; that Greeks and Phoenicians met and fought here; that Carthage had her first battle with Rome not far away; that Goths, Saracens, Normans, Germans, French and Spaniards had passed over this ground before them. Perhaps they gave a thought to the last comer, Garibaldi, who landed here with his Thousand in 1860 and won the jewel, Sicily, for King Victor’s crown; but it is more likely they thought very little about what happened before their day—it’s so much more fun to make history than to read it! All these other adventurers and heroes landed, sword in hand, to fight for the possession of this fair Sicily, this Helen among earth’s islands. For what, in the name of history, had these last invaders come? What booty did Belknap and his men hope to find in that abomination of desolation, Messina? They planted their flag where the standards of kings and conquerors have waved, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and set to work at their task of teaching the inhabitants how to build and how to live in wooden houses. Sicily has never had a Wooden Age till now; here primitive man left his cave to build a cavelike house of the soft, easily worked, tufa stone of the island. The Northmen who helped the Sicilians build their new homes—Danes, Swiss, Americans, English—were at great pains to teach them how to live safely and with comfort in their wooden dwellings, where the two chief dangers to be reckoned with are fire and vermin. For the race of Northmen, these problems had already been solved by the time Attila, the Scourge of God, built his vast wooden palace on the Danube, only to die there on his wedding night (still mourned by all true lovers) in the arms of his bride, the gracious Hilda. The Northmen’s inherited knowledge was now to help the men of the South solve the riddle: how to live safely in civilized dwellings in a quaking land?

If the Japanese can rise to be a world power, living in houses of paper and bamboo, there is no reason why the Calabrians and Sicilians should not learn to live in wooden houses, should not develop the caution and the cleanliness imperative for those who would live safely and decently within wooden walls.

“Naturally,” writes Belknap, “we took interest in the houses other people were building, some of which lay on either hand of ours. From a visit to the Lombardy houses Mr. Elliott got the suggestion of a semi-brick kitchen, which we saw we must adopt if we would make our cottages equally suitable to their future occupants’ habits of living, and as safe from fire as the houses other people were putting up. A fire built on a wooden floor or dangerously near a wooden wall is a common sight.”

The camp was astir early. The first sounds came from the kitchen, where the American who cooked for the men and the Sicilian who cooked for the officers made a great to-do with their pots and pans. Next came the music of the goat bells—where did they come from? (“Belknap thinks of everything.”) A great herd of shaggy goats came rambling into the camp, driven by their dark wild-looking herders. Jugs and bowls were brought out, and the morning supply of milk was drawn from the streaming udders of the patient goats, who browsed and nibbled at whatever they could find. Breakfast was served at six, a Gargantuan feast. There is a legend that the first morning a hungry carpenter made away with nine eggs and the larger part of a ham. After breakfast the workmen began to arrive, for the greater part of the actual manual work was done by Italians; the American officers, carpenters and sailors acted as overseers, directing the work. The first day after the “Celtic” arrived they started with five Italian workmen; the next day they had thirty; by the end of the fourth week Belknap employed five hundred Sicilian and Calabrian workmen at Messina alone.

As they arrive, each man is given his tools and his number is recorded. The boys come eating crusts of bread, sleepy-eyed and inclined to take time to finish their scanty meal. The men saunter leisurely to their work, smoking their pipes. The voice of the great “boss carpenter” is heard here, there, everywhere:

“Get to work, darn ye! It’s past seven

o’clock. Al lavoro, al lavoro! Don’t you talk your Eyetalian to me!”

So the gangs are hectored and herded to their work. Soon both admonition and expostulation are drowned in the song of the saw and plane, in the good chorus of the hammer. The Anvil Chorus seems tame when one has listened to this glorious music after the dreadful silence of Messina, where the dead still lie in tens of thousands, buried only in the debris of their houses.

Brofferio had hunted up Zenobia, his washerwoman (she lived in the country), and found her alive and well, having escaped all damage to house or property from the earthquake. She was overjoyed to see him, and early that first morning she arrived at the camp for his linen. Like the good fellow he is, Brofferio shared his good fortune with the rest, and Zenobia agreed to do the washing for his friends. She took away all she could carry on her head and came back for more, making several trips in the course of the morning. She brought the clothes back in the same piecemeal fashion, a few at a time.

“The clothes are washed in a mountain stream, beaten between two stones, and dried on the grass. They come back the sweetest smelling things in Messina,” writes J., “only we have to wait an endless time for them.”

One morning J., whose house was next Brofferio’s, heard Zenobia making a great outcry:

“Signor Comandante!” she exclaimed. “Have mercy on me; I am not strong. I live five kilometres distant—the walk is long, the path is a scandal, the sun is hot. I have brought an immense load. Madonna Santa! larger no woman could carry!”

“Thou art avaricious,” said Brofferio sternly, “which is shameful, considering thou art making more money than any woman in Messina. Dost thou grudge the soldi to hire an asino? Basta! Either take the linen properly all at once and return it in the same manner, or come no more. There is always the grandmother of Gasperone—“

“It is enough; the Signor Comandante shall be obeyed—ten donkeys, if it will appease him!”

Zenobia departed and returned later with the balance of the linen, nicely packed on the back of a tiny donkey. This plan worked admirably until the day of reckoning came, and Zenobia’s neighbor, Sor Pietro, a poor old half-crazed peasant, who had not recovered his wits since the earthquake, presented a bill for the use of the donkey. Zenobia, a queenly creature,—she looked her name,—had commandeered the beast and refused to pay for the use of it.

“She assured us, illustrious Comandante,” said Sor Pietro, weeping pitifully, “that the Government required the animal—I myself dug him out of the ruin a week after the earthquake—for the use of the Americans. I said I will go myself and hear the truth!”

Meanwhile Zenobia and the donkey arrived on the field of battle.

“Would the Sor Comandante know the truth?” Zenobia shot a basilisk glance at Pietro. “The animal was not being used. Sor Pietro himself said it was too miserably weak to draw the plough. He had no use for him, nor will have till it is time to gather his lemons and take them to the Marina. Should he deny this poor miserable brute when my officers, the magnanimous, the Heaven-sent, demand such an animal? He deserves to die of an apoplexy!”

At this moment an orderly brought a letter to Brofferio. As he turned to read it, Zenobia sprang like a panther at Pietro, caught him by the shoulder, shook him like a sack, and hissed in his deaf ear:

“Ingrate, cabbage head, hangman!”

“You have received a very large sum of money this morning,” said Brofferio, folding up his letter, “fully fifteen francs. Do me the favor to pay this man five sous. How many times hath she borrowed the asino? Five sous for each trip. Now then!”

Zenobia produced a soiled and knotted handkerchief from her stocking and counted the money unwillingly into Pietro’s seamy brown palm.

“Now I wonder,” said Brofferio, as the pair walked amicably away together, “if that comedy was all arranged beforehand?”

 

The early days at Mosella recall the description of the building of Carthage. The busy master-carpenters, each with his foot-rule in his pocket, his blue pencil behind his ear, move about among the gangs of Sicilian laborers. One measures out on the bare ground the place where the timbers that form the sills of the next house shall be laid; another directs the driver of a heavy ox-team, drawn by a pair of sturdy red steers, where to discharge a load of fragrant new cut pine boards.

At noon work comes to a halt. Francesco taps at the office door and announces:

“Dinny ready, Mister!” Francesco is a Sicilian of the Greek type, straight as a lance, with a fine head, thick curling hair and eyes of gray sapphire. He escaped unhurt from his house the morning after the earthquake, after lying for hours under the ruins.

At dinner Belknap sits at the head of the long table; on his right is Brofferio. Then seated in the order of their rank come the officers, the “architect,” as they call J., and the master-carpenters. The table is laid with neatness—for a camp, with elegance. There is a white table-cloth with napkins, borrowed from the “Celtic;” at either end stands a bowl filled with pale quince blossoms, wreathed with ivy—winding ivy besprent with purple berries, the kind that twined the bacchantes’ thyrsus. This is Gasperone’s idea, the touch of the æsthetic, the legacy of Hellas, that every day and every hour you see in Sicily, that makes this land and its people rich in grace beyond all others.

“Them flowers looks kinder pretty,” said Timothy, the carpenter. He made a mental note to write his wife about Gasperone’s decoration of the “mess” table.

Francesco and Gasperone, the Sicilian servants, have a third helper, Mr. Buchanan’s “boy,” a magnificent negro. This full-blooded African giant stands six-feet-two; he is broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, with teeth like new-peeled almonds and eyes like the big Sicilian oxen. He has the same pictorial “value” as the blacks Paul Veronese painted in his Venetian feasts.

Dinner begins with a loin of good roast American pork from the “Celtic’s” store. The big negro offers a dish to go with the pork, whispering in a gentle lisp:

“Apple thause, thir?”

After dinner there is a short pause; work only begins again at one o’clock. Pipes are lighted; in Flagstaff Square the sailors have a game of baseball, watched and cheered by a delighted crowd of Messinesi. Work is over for the men at halfpast five, for the masters

only at bedtime. There is no theatre, no place of amusement, not even a cinematograph in Messina. At sunset the young sailors, who have worked all day and are not yet tired, wrestle and box together, for the lust of life that is in them. A crowd of men and boys gathers to watch and applaud; if the sounds of labor are welcome in this silent city, the joyous sounds of play are twice welcome. Between nine and ten J., who works in a little cubby-hole shut off from the captain’s office, is ready to turn in. He has stood all day at his drawing-board, making the plans as fast—or almost—as Belknap asks for them. His bed is “delightfully comfortable;” the “spring” is given by nailing the planks at one end of the bunk and leaving them free at the other, so that they have some play; mattress and pillow are of good sweet seaweed.

“Last night was chilly,” he writes, “but thanks to the traveling rug, in addition to two blankets and Hooper’s coat, I was quite warm. I got the tip from a native that the nights were cold and passed on my acquired knowledge, but it was unheeded by the others, who got left. I knew I should be too sleepy to put the extra things on, so I plumped them all on before I went to sleep. Tonight we are going to be supplied with extra blankets. It’s now a little after one o’clock and the heat is quite uncomfortable; it seems stupid to be talking of blankets.”

By ten all lights are out except Belknap’s, always the last. Every night he knots up the business of the past day; makes each record, answers all letters, plans out the next morning’s work. When he is not at work elsewhere, the Chief sits in his office writing those endless despatches, letters, reports, that are not the easiest part of his prodigious labor. Read them over now: it seems impossible that the man, who carried on this minute detailed correspondence, could have found time for anything else. You feel the character of the writer in every page; the will of iron, the heart of a child, the training of a sailor who, in order to command, learned first to obey. Nowhere in all this mass of letters and reports will you find Belknap “posing” before his correspondent or that imaginary audience, the world, that may always get a sight of such documents; everywhere, with a skill not born of chance, whenever he can “throw the limelight” on one of his men, he does so with a generous hand. Belknap is one of those natural leaders of men, who seem providentially to arise in great emergencies. His tireless energy, his cheerful courage are positively infectious; his example and influence are felt in every phase of the enterprise of which he was the leader.

Just what was his work? To bring order out of chaos. Men are the instruments of mankind; the race chooses the individual to carry out its desires, as the sculptor his tools. The nation, torn by a sister’s anguish, acted first with the heart of Roosevelt, second with the mind of Griscom, third with the will of Belknap; these three men were the triumvirate who put through the imperial thing America desired. The records of a man of action are brief; for him it is the doing that delights, not the telling; and yet in reading over Belknap’s report one comes, now and again, upon a pearl of pathos, a diamond of humor, that makes the formal document a precious thing, that makes the camp by the Torrente Zaera one of those that will not be forgotten.

In these early days ten American carpenters superintended the Italian workmen (later there were more). These skilled mechanics drilled and trained their men with care and energy, for among other things the camp by the Torrente Zaera was a school of carpentry. Perhaps five per cent. of the Italians were really fair workmen; the majority were careless and slovenly at their craft. Many of them had never worked at anything, let alone carpentry. The houses they built were the least part of our carpenters’ good work; they established a standard of excellence unknown hitherto in a community where, though the good St. Joseph is honored, his trade is sadly slighted.

The carpenters and sailors, as such men will, brought their own manners, their point of view with them and stoutly maintained them. They were strong, tough-fibred men, more inclined to teach than to learn from their strange experience. The first Sunday afternoon Timothy and Hugh went out together for a stroll in the country. They met a Sicilian riding a donkey; he was followed by an old woman whom they guessed to be his grandmother, carrying on her head a large box and a small keg.

“See that big man, so proud looking, with those two baskets of lemons loaded on to that poor jackass’s back; his little legs are bending under him,” said Timothy.

“Such treatment as they give the jackass should not be allowed,” Hugh agreed. “The Italians certainly are a hard lot.”

“It’s Gasperone!” cried Timothy.

“Hullo you!” roared Hugh. “Get right off that donkey and let the old lady ride; do you hear?”

Hugh, a blond giant, in a white linen jumper and breeches, white canvas cap and puttees, black shoes and neckerchief, impressed the grandmother of Gasperone. She stopped and stood staring at him, her skinny arms akimbo, her feet firmly planted in the road. He was pleasant to look at, this strange man from the north, with his frank blue eyes, his yellow hair, his rough kindly voice. She was not too old (what woman is?) to take notice of a handsome young man.

“Get down!” ordered Hugh.

“Awe ri’, awe ri’,” Gasperone answered soothingly, then said something to the old woman. She laid her load down and, laughing heartily, seated herself on the donkey.

“Now make a beast o’ burthen o’ your fat self, and see how you like it,” Hugh commanded.

“Awe ri’!” Gasperone took upon his back, awkwardly enough, the load his grandmother had so skilfully balanced on her head. The two Americans watched the couple out of sight round the corner. Brofferio, who saw the whole scene from the launch—he was on his way to the Italian warship, “Dandolo”—declares that as soon as they were out of sight the grandmother dismounted and Gasperone returned to the donkey’s back.

The “Hern” was the second timber ship to arrive. Her Norwegian captain’s wife was on board; Captain Belknap mentions her presence as if it were a fortunate and happy thing.

“When I beheld a most beautiful young lady in a boat making for the shore,” Timothy was heard confiding to Hugh, “blushing like a June morning in Indiana, I went and got a hair-cut and a shave.”

“She certainly is a charming person,” Hugh agreed; “goodness is shining from her eyes.”

“They tell over to the ‘Hern’ that she came on board at Algiers, and that the captain has been like a boy with a new sled ever since,” Timothy continued, “which strengthens my belief in the captain’s wife’s goodness.”

One of the Sicilians, who had applied for work as a carpenter and proved utterly unfit for it, had now, with Belknap’s encouragement, set up a barber’s saloon close to the camp. After the “Hern’s” arrival he was much patronized.

The “Hern” was ordered directly to Reggio, where a second camp had been established under the command of Ensign Wilcox. This camp, while smaller than that at Messina, was admirably managed from the first. One morning, while the “Hern” was discharging her cargo, Wilcox was waked at half past five by the news that a big pontoon, their only lighter, that had been loaded the night before, was sinking. Wilcox plunged overboard with a line, hoping to get it made fast ashore and then beach the pontoon before it sank; but as he reached the shore, the lighter went down with a final gurgle, carrying with it half their nails, glass and roofing paper. The boards, doors and other light material went floating about the harbor, and as in Reggio there be land thieves as well as water thieves there was a lively time guarding the floating property. Wilcox was fortunate in finding a diver, who undertook to dive for the precious nails and the other heavy things that had sunk to the bottom of the harbor. Timothy, who had been ordered to Reggio, was deeply moved by the accident. He used every effort to hurry the diver to his work, but for some inexplicable reason the man kept putting it off.

“I have been trying to get that diver started,” Timothy complained. “He can’t talk English but I finally found out he would not go down while it rains. I thought that strange but found out the reason at last; he is afraid to go down lest the man pumping would stop if a heavy shower comes on and let him die for want of air.

“The river pirates is thick as fleas,” Timothy went on; “they are lifting every thing in sight.”

The “river pirates” got away with very little, however, as they were pursued and forced to bring back the stolen articles.

Timothy was anxious that the Reggio camp should lack nothing the Messina camp possessed; he had a great deal to say to Hugh on the subject whenever they met.

“It’s a treat to see the Stars and Stripes

floating here,” he said to Hugh. “I want Wilcox to fly them at Reggio but he darsen’t without orders. What’s the captain’s notion?”

“Why, we was the first to hoist our flag the day we come ashore,” said Hugh. “After that all the other people, English, Swiss, French, Germans, had to hoist their banners, all over the shop, till now the place looks like a blooming world’s fair.”

Or like a camp of latter-day crusaders, Hugh!

“I think we should have our own colors, all the same,” Timothy persisted. “If the ‘boss’ goes away, I will send them up if I swing for it. Besides, it will create respect. Our men have had to wait a day for their pay. I hope they get it tonight. Last evening to hear them roaring you would think Old Tilley, the pig killer, was back in life!”

“Time to haul her down,” Hugh looked to the west.

It was sundown. The bugler sounded attention, the men all stood in line, facing the flag. The bugler played the salute to the colors, and just as the red ball dropped behind the blue ridge of mountains, Hugh slowly, slowly hauled down the flag.

“That,” said one who watched the pretty ceremony, “is a survival of sun worship.”

About the time the lighter sank, I received a letter from the camp, asking for a man who spoke English, had some knowledge of accounts—a man, in fine, like Thompson—who would come to Messina. Belknap was shorthanded; the work was doubling up on them. Was there any chance of that nice boy, Flint? Would Thompson possibly reconsider? Thompson could not; Flint was in Egypt.

I remember well the day the letter came, if not the date. I was in Florence, spending a few happy hours by the Arno, in the shadow of the Giglio, Giotto’s perfect tower, second among towers only to the Giralda of Seville. There had been a wonderful jaunt from Rome in an automobile, that reminded me of my mother’s stories of her wedding journey through Italy in a traveling carriage. The motor has brought back the romance to travel, that seemed banished forever when the last vetturino sold his traveling carriage, driven out of business by the railroad.

We four—Mr. Parrish the host, Miss Helen Lee, his niece, Charles, the Yankee chauffeur, and I—had passed through Umbria, Tuscany, visited Perugia and Gubbio, stopped at Assisi and Siena, looked at the gem, San Gimignano—but that’s another story.

That golden day in Florence we hunted up our old friend, George de Forrest Brush, the painter, corralled him in his studio and carried him off willy-nilly to lunch at the Trattoria Aurora on the heights of Fiesole. It was too cold to eat in the garden, so after a long look at the blue Val d’Arno with its encircling mountains, the Carraras and the Apennines, we went into the bare little dining-room. Soon the two specialties of the inn smoked on the table, a dish of chicken cooked with red and yellow peppers—the sauce would make an anchorite greedy—and whole artichokes fried to a golden brown, served with melted butter. For those who wanted it, there was a flask of good red Chianti di Broglio; for all there was the rarer wine of friendship.

After luncheon we started in the automobile for the convent, perched on a hill high above Fiesole. When we had made half the distance, we passed an automobile stuck fast in the mire. Soon after we were obliged to turn back on account of the snow; the road runs in spirals; some of the turns are sharp, a true mountain highway, with a precipice on either side. Just as we turned a sharp curve, the machine came to a sudden stop. A tree trunk, big as a railroad sleeper, lay directly in our path, placed across the road since we made the ascent.

“A close call!” muttered the chauffeur, as he put on the brake and stopped the car. If he had not been quick as a flash, we should have had a bad accident. Charles next sprang from the car, dragged the log to the edge of the path and hurled it down the mountainside.

“That dago will have a little trouble to tote you up again!” he chuckled, as the great piece of wood hurtled down the steep.

“A miss is as good as a mile,” our host reassured us.

“Such wickedness as that makes me sick,” said Charles, as he twirled the steering wheel and set the car in motion. We were all silent for the next mile or two.

Which of us was it meant for? Who has so cruel an enemy? We never knew. When I read lately of Mr. Edward Boit and his brother being “held up” and robbed near Vallombrosa, not very far from Fiesole, I wondered if we had escaped the same band of brigands.

“Do you know a man who wants to go down and help Captain Belknap at Messina?” I asked Mr. Brush, as we sped down the incline, leaving Fiesole behind, past the Villa Palmieri where the characters of Boccaccio’s Decamerone lived during the great plague of 1348.

“My son Gerome has wanted to go down ever since the earthquake. I will send him to see you tonight,” said the artist.

That evening Gerome Brush called at our hotel; it was agreed that I should write Belknap, offering his services in whatever capacity he could be useful.

“I am in the automobile business now,” the young man said, “but that’s only temporary. When I go back to America I shall study law. I have been trying to get to Sicily all winter; do fix it up for me!”

It was “fixed up.” Belknap telegraphed us to send Brush, and we all returned to Rome.

“Why don’t you end up your trip by all coming down here?” The question was repeated several times in J.’s letters. As a result, on the 24th of March, Patsy, Gerome Brush and I left Rome for Sicily. We traveled as far as Naples with Mr. Parrish and his niece, who were to sail in a few days for home and could not come with us. The trip from Rome to Naples was a pleasant one, though the spring was very backward. Only a few quince and apricot trees were in blossom; the beautiful vineyards were still dark, without a sign of promise. Hanging from tree to tree in the old classic fashion, the vines made a lovely pattern of delicate black tracery against the fervent blue sky.

At Naples we regretfully parted with Mr. Parrish and Miss Lee. Patsy laid in a stock of sandwiches, milk chocolate and newspapers, and we set our faces to the south, prepared for any fate.

Soon after leaving Naples our train broke down.

“E rotto il Westinghouse,” the guard said to each separate traveler in turn.

“Look at Vesuvius, or what’s left of it!” cried Patsy. We had halted within sight of the great volcano. Patsy had not seen it since the eruption of 1906, when one of the twin cones sank out of sight and the whole outline of the mountain was altered, losing much of its distinction. “I never thought to see the everlasting hills change their very shape before my eyes—that gives you an idea of volcanic force!”

On the 25th of March we woke to a wet world. Through the blurred windows of the sleeping-car we looked out upon emerald fields and fruit orchards, between stretches of rough uncultivated land. The way passed through lemon groves, where the trees were covered thick with pale gold lemons, the air was sweet with the fragrance of their blossoms; through vast plantations of blue-green cactus, like those of Morocco; through orange groves where the branches bent beneath the weight of red-gold fruit. Everywhere was that splendid contrast of the red and yellow golds, mixed with the gorgeous dark green foliage of the nespoli, whose fruit ripens much later—now there were only hard little green balls between bunches of long graceful leaves. Here and there the green was softened by rosy peach blossoms, the intenser pink of the apricot, or the queer gray sprawling limbs of fig trees covered with silvery bloom, though not a leaf had yet unfolded.

“How can we be such fools as to linger in a city when the miracle of Spring has begun!” Patsy exclaimed; we all agreed never again to commit that folly of follies. At every station we passed cars loaded with piles of newly sawed American lumber, shipped from Naples and distributed at various points on the Calabrian coast. At Palmi we saw the first ruins. Some little wooden huts had been built on the lower slopes of the hill; on the side-tracks were rows of extra railway carriages, turned into shelters for the poor homeless people. It had been raining desperately until we reached Palmi, where fortunately it held up long enough for us to have a good look at the magnificent olive trees, the finest I ever saw. A whole forest of olives goes climbing up the mountainside, like hoary giants with wild arms tossed to heaven. The trees in Dante’s Inferno, that bled when their limbs were broken, must have looked like these ancient olives of Palmi, centuries old, still the main support of the peasants on whose land they grow. The chestnuts were as fine in their way, sturdy umbrageous monarchs of the wood, but lacking the mystery that above all other trees the olive, Athena’s gift, possesses.

Patsy had an errand at Bagnara. From the midst of a group of sad, listless looking women, who stood watching our train as if it were the one important event of the day, a tall girl in black pushed her way to the front. There must have been some signal agreed upon; how else could Patsy have found the sister of Sora Clara the moment he stepped on the platform at Bagnara? They talked together until our train started, when Patsy slipped something into the girl’s hand and sprang into the car.

“Don’t report me,” he said. “I have turned over a new leaf; I don’t let my right hand know what my left hand does. I

reported every franc I gave away in Rome, till I caught on to what it meant. My poor Sanscrit professor had been promised substantial help. I reported the little money I gave him; after that he got nothing more. I was told never to give a single family more than fifty francs. How’s a man who has lost everything he has in the world going to start life again on ten dollars?

The situation of Bagnara recalls Amalfi; there is a fine smooth beach, where the fishing boats are drawn up on the shore. The nets are spread higher up on the sand. Above the lovely scallop of shore the little town perches on the hillside. At Gioia Tauro, just before Palmi, the semicircle of golden beach in the shape of a scimitar, the beryl green water, reminded us of Tangiers.

After we passed Bagnara the train went very slowly.

“At this rate we shall never reach Taormina tonight,” Patsy complained.

“Pazienza, Signorino! chi va piano va sano!” said the guard. “This is the first train that has gone through since the landslide.” This was the first we had heard of a landslide.

“A mere nothing, only the rocks came trundling down from the mountains and broke the track so badly that no trains have run for the past month,” the guard explained.

“Scylla!” We must have been dozing, for we all started when the guard called out the name of the station.

“Look!”

The tremendous rock of Scylla, with the strong castle on the top, springs from the sea like a great many-toned jewel of coral, shading from rose to yellow. The sun shone, the wind blew the surf in great green and white surges against the cliff. Further out the water was pale emerald, with sudden streaks of amethyst; everywhere on sea, shore and cloud lay shadows of sapphire.

Even Patsy was dumb, moved beyond words by that glimpse.

“Their Excellencies saw the castle?” chirruped the friendly guard. “The earthquake didn’t hurt it, more than to crack the outer wall a trifle. They knew how to build in those days!”

“The castle is a trumpery medieval affair,” remarked Patsy, “though it was standing when Robert Guiscard came in 1060, but the rock! In the Odyssey it’s described as the home of a roaring sea monster, with six terrific heads, twelve deformed feet, and three rows of teeth. Look over there—the lighthouse! That marks the whirlpool! ‘Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdis!’”

Across the narrow strait lay the jewel of the south, Sicily! The old name, Trinacria, was given to the island on account of its shape, an irregular triangle with three great points or promontories. It was once a part of the Apennine range, but in some volcanic upheaval it was broken off—as a monarch breaks a link from his gold chain and tosses it to some henchman—and thrown into the Mediterranean, where it shines a brilliant in a sapphire setting, the most coveted, the most disputed of earth’s gems.

Patsy had not spoken for twenty minutes. His dancing eyes had grown grave and steady; the imp, the sprite, the creature of impulse, was gone; in his place was a stranger with grave eyes.

“Villa San Giovanni,” cried the guard. “Il ferryboat per Messina.”

“Ferryboat! Sounds familiar,” said Patsy. “Tumble out, we’re here!”

As Patsy made me comfortable on one of the wooden benches, I saw a familiar face that puzzled me in the crowd of passengers. Where had I met that pale girl with the mouth like a scarlet trumpet-creeper, the thin curved eyebrows like a crescent moon, the deep eyes that looked violet in the distance and were blue?

“I know her,” I said.

“She doesn’t appear to know you,” Patsy murmured. I was so sure I knew her that I began to burrow in my memory, searched pigeonhole after pigeonhole to find just where in a lifetime of impressions that arch face was tucked away.

“It’s Palladia!” I found her at last. “My milliner, lost to us in Rome for three painful years, ever since she went to Palermo to set up for herself.”

I spoke to the girl without more ado:

“Palladia, don’t you remember me?”

“Perfectly, Signora. I have not seen you since the morning I brought you the hat with the primole for Pasqua.”

“And you would not have spoken to me?”

“Pardon me, Signora, may I fasten your veil? I feared you would not recall me.” We were shaking hands warmly now; she was my milliner again, I her client.

“If I bent the hat a little, so? That is more becoming.”

“You have done well in Palermo?”

“Discreetly; I am returning from Naples, where I have been to buy the new shapes, look over the modes. I have some beautiful French straw—if the Signora should come to Palermo?”

“Of course I shall come, just to get one of your hats. I haven’t had a decent one since you left Rome.” Palladia produced her card and, wishing each other buon viaggio, we parted at the dock, Palladia to take the train for Palermo, we to look for a cab.

“No one to meet us! They can’t have received letter or telegram,” said Patsy. “Just as well, nothing like taking our friends unawares. Now they won’t have time to smarten up for us.”

“Will that old rabbit-hutch hold us all?” I asked, looking distrustfully at the only vehicle in sight. The driver understood; he seized the wheel of the battered old cab and shook it violently to show how strong it was.

“This is a most excellent and signorial carriage, Signorino. It needs paint; why should it not? I dug it out myself from the ruins, and the horse too. That blessed animal has cost me a lot of fatigue. It was nine days before I could get him out, nine days sotto le macerie!”

“How much to the Case Americane?” asked Patsy.

“Two francs, Excellency, with a slight token for myself. The Comandante himself set the price. He drives with no other; I am the official coachman of the Americans.”

For a horse that had been nine days buried, the poor little rat of a pony drew the cab bravely through the Via San Martino, one smooth lake of yellow mud.

“There’s Old Glory!” shouted Patsy.

I had been so much taken up with looking back at the desolate streets, at the Tell Tale Tower, I did not know we had arrived at camp. Two Italian soldiers, on guard at the entrance, halted the cab.

“Stop, thou knowest thou canst go no

farther,” said the elder, evidently a friend of the driver’s.

“What dost thou say? I, who drive to the door of the barracks four times every day at least! Mayst thou die of an accident!”

“Never, unless there is an officer in thy cab. These be strangers, without a written pass from the Comandante; they cannot enter!”

“Archpriest, I say! Mayst thou be stricken with—“

“Oh, come now, officer,” Patsy interrupted persuasively, “you will not make the lady walk through this mud! We are friends of the American Comandante. He expects us.”

The soldier was firm; we could not pass.

“Peace, I will inform the Sor Comandante,” said a new voice. It was Gasperone; I recognized him from J.’s description. He put his finger to his lips and tapped gently at the door of the small neat wooden cottage nearest the flag.

“Behold a lady and two gentlemen, who have driven up in a cab,” said Gasperone through the half-opened door. “Shall they be sent away or allowed to enter the camp?”

J., standing at his drawing-board, looked from the window.

“Good Lord,” I heard him cry, “they’ve come!”

Our plan was to spend the afternoon at the camp and push on that night to Taormina, an hour and a half distant by train. Captain Belknap received us most kindly and showed us about the camp. What had been accomplished was a miracle; the place had already begun to look like a neat, well laid out American village.

“We save every tree we possibly can,” said Belknap. “Each lemon tree brings an income of at least ten francs, the mulberries even more.”

Belknap and J. fought hard for the life of every tree that did not actually interfere with the construction of the buildings. Some of the streets have long lines of lemon trees, with here and there a fig tree. They saved a double row of shade trees, for which the guests at Hotel Regina Elena will some day bless them.

As we were inspecting the site of the hotel, the heavens opened and the flood descended. We hurried to the office for shelter and admired the trim row of ledgers, the typewriter, the letter scales, the red, white and blue silk cord that Uncle Sam makes for his own special service, all the tidy paraphernalia of the Chief’s workroom. I peeped into the drafting-room, partitioned off with a wooden screen from the office. It looked nice and professional, with sheets of architect’s paper, opaque white, semi-transparent blue, yellow tracing, compasses, T squares, all sorts of fascinating architectural tools. On the wall hung the neatly drawn plans of the hotel; on the drawing-board was the ground plan for the Queen’s hospital at Villaggio Regina Elena.

“May we look?” Patsy asked.

“If you will not touch,” J. glanced up from his work. “Mind that India ink!”

“I can’t let you go on to Taormina in such a tempest,” said Captain Belknap. “If you will put up with what we can offer, I should be glad to have you spend the night at the camp.” This was more than we had dared hope for; Patsy was in the seventh heaven.

“It’s a reward for bringing down the new recruit,” he whispered.

Brush, the “new recruit,” was sent almost immediately to Reggio, where Wilcox found him an invaluable assistant.

I was shown to my quarters—the room that had been Mr. Bicknell’s—in a small frame house, sixteen by sixteen. It was divided into two rooms by a wooden partition with a door; there was a well fitted window with a sash curtain in each room. Behind the house was the famous kitchen, of which we had heard so much. It is a tiny convenient place with a cement floor and walls, a stone table with little holes for the live charcoal, and grates to go over the fire. My room had a table, chair, washstand with jug, basin and pail. Gasperone brought me hot water and took my boots and dress to brush. In the corner of the room was a most ingenious and convenient bed. Some springy boards were nailed rather loosely to an upright head and footpiece; the boards were almost as good as a spring, the mattress and pillow of sea-moss were comfortable enough for anybody, not born in Sybaris.

I sat down and looked out of the window towards the tool house, the center of interest for the moment. The men had knocked off work, and were passing in file, very slowly, before the open window, where the paymaster sat, paying each man what was due him.

After our long journey, our harassing drive through ruined Messina—where the reality surpassed all descriptions—the exquisite neatness, the order, the comfort of the Zona Case Americane, brought a sense of well-being like oil poured on a burning wound. I sat for an hour in that fragrant little wooden room, while the rain drummed with soft fingers on the roof, and went over the history of our journey step by step, tested link by link the chain of chance circumstances that had drawn young Brush, the new recruit, from the garage in Florence to the camp by the Torrente Zaera.

The manner in which the whole American working party was brought together is well illustrated by the story. If Mr. Parrish had not been in Florence, if he had not hunted up Mr. Brush, if that letter from camp had not come the day we lunched at the Trattoria Aurora, we should not have had one of our most useful and faithful workers; and young Brush would have missed one of the great experiences of his life. Mr. Griscom felt that one of his practical difficulties was that all the help he could hope for must be drawn from the American colonies in Italy, the Government agents, consuls, artists and missionaries. If this was a difficulty—which I question—the way it was overcome both at the Embassy and the camp was magnificent. Whatever tool he had, Belknap worked with and found it a good tool. It may have been his nature—he is the kind of workman who never grumbles at his tools—but the character of the helpers surely counted for something. Our consuls were never found wanting. Bayard Cutting from Milan, though out of health at the time of the earthquake, went down to Messina with the first relief party, and from that time on he was faithful to the great work. Bishop at Palermo, Crowninshield at Naples, Smith at Genoa, did magnificent service, working day and night, without thought of sparing themselves. The spirit of the officials and volunteers was almost without exception altruistic. Every man was trying to help the other out; all were matched in the great race for service. Sailors, consuls, artists and missionaries have something in common surely; it was just that something that made them of so much use. They are not machines; they have not been warped and deformed by the commercial slavery that is sapping the life-blood of our people. Mammon, the slave-driver, may crack his whip; it does not frighten them. Their time is not money, it’s beyond price, so they spent it freely for their suffering brothers and never counted the cost.

J. had written that the nights were cold. I unpacked my hot-water bottle and my traveling rug; I was just on the point of calling Gasperone to fill the bottle, when J. looked in. His eyes brightened at the sight of the rubber bottle.

“Are you going to use this?” he asked.

“Oh, no! I always travel with it, in case of illness.”

“If you are sure, I will have it filled; Belknap’s taken cold. You brought the rug; will you need it?”

“No, no! There are plenty of blankets.”

“You think so? Then I will take this for him. Some of the men have been greedy about blankets; he has less than any man in the camp.”

“Take them, take them of course!” J. went off with bottle and rug; I piled every garment I had with me on my sea-moss bed and tucked myself up comfortably. What sort of man was this Chief who inspired such devotion?

It must have been after midnight, for the cocks were crowing, when I was awakened by the sound of gunshots, followed by loud shouts and the noise of hurrying footsteps. I listened, as I never listened before.

In the distance a dog bayed; some vagrant cur had escaped in spite of the stringent orders to shoot all dogs and cats on sight. The flash of a lantern next, the clank of a sword-belt as if one buckled on his weapon as he ran, more footsteps, at first light and hurrying, then slow and heavy,—the tread of men who carry a burthen: they passed the door, grew faint, were lost in the silence of the night. Through the upper uncurtained window-panes the haggard face of the gibbous moon looked from an angry sky.

I asked at breakfast what the commotion had been. No one had heard the noises of the night; it was suggested that I had been dreaming. Months after, Patsy told me what had happened.

“You remember the two soldiers who challenged us when we reached the camp? They had to keep a strict watch at night so that the building materials and tools should not be stolen. The soldier on duty fell asleep at his post. He was wakened suddenly by the steps of his comrade, come to relieve him; before he was fully awake he caught up his gun and shot the poor fellow, who, as it happened, was his best friend. I had it from the cab-driver, never a word of it at camp of course!”

That morning Patsy hunted up the Avvocato Bonanno, and through him made several interesting acquaintances. He lunched with some officers, and recognized among the dishes served certain canned meats sent out from America for the profughi.

“The Sicilian peasants simply won’t eat them; they’d rather starve,” Patsy explained. “The only thing to do with the quantities of tinned food we sent is to feed it to the army; they’re not so particular. Another time when we want to help such people in a plight like this, we should send flour and corn-meal and trust them to turn them into macaroni and polenta, their two staples of life. We’re so fond of change, so keen about new foods, that we give old standbys, like hominy and oatmeal, new fancy names every year, just to sell them. An American believes something new is better than anything old. An Italian only admits a thing good that has been so proven by the centuries. Have you room in your bag for this?” Patsy handed me a pound package of Salada Ceylon tea.

“Where did you get it?”

“Bought it! We sent these poor devils half a cargo of tea! They did not know what on earth it was good for, tried to smoke it, chew it, use it as snuff—no go! Finally they put it on sale; now foreigners in camp and on shipboard can buy it at a fair price! The money is put into coffee; that is the very breath of life to a Sicilian.”

“What did you think had happened?”

Caterina traced a cross with her bare brown toe in the dusty path of the campo santo: “Per Dio, Signora, we thought it was the Day of Judgment. Mamma, babbo and I were dressed, ready to go to work—we live here, my father is guardiano. My two brothers were in bed; they were killed. One still remains sotto le macerie; there is no way to get the body out. After the 28th of April no more may be moved on account of infection; it is finished.”

Caterina, daughter of the porter at the cemetery, a lovely girl of sixteen, was our guide. Smiling, she welcomed us, standing under a sculptured “Genius of Grief.”

“A strange guide for such a place!” said Patsy.

Strange indeed! Coffins everywhere, and babies in grandams’ arms—the new life pushing aside the old, as the green oak leaves come out beneath the brown.

As Caterina led the way up the sunny slope, between cypresses and roses, she pointed out the tottering and broken monuments; the earthquake had wrought strange havoc here. The chapel of the Cavallieri di Messina with its fine Ionic colonnade was a ruin; some of the tombs were wrenched open.

“Perhaps these dead, like ourselves, thought that the last day had come,” said Caterina.

A wine cart loaded with casks of wine, with a coffin lashed at the back, passed us. It was followed by two women with grim set faces—no tears, they were all shed long ago. Caterina paused by the grave of the patriot, La Farina, picked a red rose and handed it to me with a shy smile. From the upper terrace we looked down on a plain, furrowed as if for planting. A long line of men were digging a trench. Piles of plain unmarked wooden boxes—there must have been several hundreds—were stacked on the ground.

“These might be packing cases for dry-goods,” said Patsy. “There’s not the faintest suggestion of the human form, not even the sloping line of the shoulders, to show what they are!”

“Will there be no service, no benediction?” I asked Caterina.

“God has already given them benediction enough,” she replied.

Messina is like a battle-field; there is too much haste for funeral pomp; nothing remains to be done but get the poor human remains out of sight, under ground as soon as possible. From time to time the Archbishop visits the campo santo, blesses the dead en masse, and sprinkles holy water on the long brown mounds.

As we watched the men delving in the fosse, a gay little painted carretto passed, driven by a blond lad with a roguish face and a rose behind his ear. He sat upon two coffins, whistling merrily.

“Buon giorno, Caterina; what a fine day, if the sun would only stay!” He flourished his whip and flicked a fly off the mule’s ear.

Caterina looked at him adoringly and echoed his wish:

“Perhaps the rains are over,” she said. “Thou art well, Carlino?”

While they talked about the weather, their eyes also spoke of secrets unspeakable. It was easy to see how things stood between them. In that dreadful indescribable atmosphere, hazel eyes caught fire from blue. Death had become a commonplace to the lover and his lass; after so many months of familiarity they had grown callous to its ugliness. In the meeting of their eyes, life laughed at death.

In the upper, more aristocratic part of the campo santo, the dead lay in separate graves. Caterina stopped near two grave-diggers at work.

“Two metres deep,” she said sagely.

A pair of stone-masons were working here, directed by a tall eagle-faced man and a youth, evidently his son. One mason marked on a small white headstone letters and a date in black; then with a chisel, which he knocked only with his hand, chipped out the letters from the stone. It must have been soft as cheese, for by the time the grave was a metre deep, the name Domenica was neatly carved. The second mason was smoothing a little white cross that had been roughed out of the same soft stone. When the grave was two metres deep, cross and headstone were ready. The plain wooden coffin had a rude cross nailed on the lid. Without a flower or a tear, it was lowered into the grave and the earth filled in.

“Thou hast done well and quickly,” said the gentleman to the elder mason. “Here is the money as agreed.”

“The others the Signore spoke of?”

“Gone—there was some mistake. We have found only this, the youngest. Perhaps another has buried them, thinking them his own. I return to Rome tonight.”

Then I remembered: this was the man I had met with the fair young woman going from one survivor to another, asking for news of Messina.

An Italian officer and an Englishman passed, and stood looking down at those men digging in the long trench.

“What do you advise?” asked the officer. “She is tormented; here is her last letter. Nothing will satisfy her unless I find him. I have tried every way; there is no trace, no record. He may have been among those burned or carried out to sea the first days; he may be in that trench. What would you do?”

“Find him,” said the Englishman, “or another in his place, and put up a stone to him. Then she can have a place to lay her flowers and to weep; it’s not his bones, but his memory—” They passed out of earshot.

We moved to another part of the upper terrace and watched half a dozen men take up the flat stone covers of a row of tombs, sunk under the marble pavement.

“What are they doing?” Patsy asked.

“We must make room here, there, everywhere, for these new ones,” Caterina answered. “No one could have expected such a calamity; how could we be prepared?” She spoke with the anxiety of a hostess, who has not beds enough for her guests to sleep in. “These poor dead, they too must lie in sanctified ground; it is their turn.”

“Those buried here before?”

“The people who died of the last cholera.”

“Let us go,” said Patsy, “we’ve seen enough.”

Did he remember the story they tell in Florence? When the ancient city wall was taken down fifty years ago, the workmen died like sheep of a mysterious disease. An investigation was ordered. It was found that the old wall crossed the cemetery, where the victims of the great plague were buried in the fourteenth century; the plague germs were still alive, and the workmen had died of the plague that in Boccaccio’s time decimated Florence.

“Would you like a new dress, Caterina?” said Patsy, as we paused at the gate. Her ragged gown clung to her with the grace of classic drapery; it seemed a pity to change it for a stiff new dress. “Come to the Case Americane at two o’clock and ask for the Signora.”

“Si, Signorino!” She watched us go with dancing eyes; she was to have a new dress.

Carlino was waiting outside the gate. His cart was empty now; we stopped to look at the pretty turnout. The mule’s harness was superb, with a high pommel and headstall of crimson velvet embroidered in tinsel. The wooden axle was beautifully carved with grotesque heads at either end. The panels in sides and back of the cart were painted with different scenes from Sicilian history or literature. Many of the old legends are preserved in this way. In spite of the painting being rather poor, certain classic details are observed. The subject of each scene is stated so that there can be no doubt as to what the painter wishes to portray. On one panel of Carlino’s carretto the title is painted under a tragic mask:

“Eschylus gives a rehearsal of his play of Œdipus at Colonus at the Theatre of Dionysius.”

“That’s Eschylus,” Patsy pointed out, “you know him by the roll of manuscript in his hand—the play happens to be by Sophocles, a mere detail!”

The next panel represents English soldiers scouting in the desert.

“That’s an officer in khaki and a wide-awake hat on horseback, with an Arab in a bournous pointing out the way.”

“La prima lettera amorosa” occupies the third panel, a garden scene—a gentleman in Louis Quinze dress plays the harp to the heroine in pink satin, reading a letter; below the tail-board is a boldly carved dragon; in an under-panel a pair of sweethearts embracing. Carlino was proud of his cart, which was fresh, clean, and newly varnished.

“Not a bad carretto, is it?” he said, pleased at our attention. We left Carlino waiting, and singing as he waited an old song of the people:

We looked into the Giardino Mazzini, where the Calabresi family took refuge after the earthquake. The sign at the entrance was still intact: “The public is prayed not to touch the plants or to walk upon the grass.”

In the middle of the garden the calm face of Mazzini looks down upon a strange scene. Barracks and shanties have been knocked together anywhere, everywhere; one family is established in a gay little summer house. A clothes-line has been made fast to the pedestal that supports the patriot’s bust, a scarlet petticoat flaps behind his head; two women are washing at a tub; a man tends a fire in an open grate, built of stray bricks; in a gypsy kettle, hung on three sticks, something savory boils and bubbles. A swing has been put up across the broken iron railing; a tall girl is seated in the swing, her hair neatly tied with a green ribbon; with a bold foot she pushes the ground, and swings high, higher, under the palm trees where the dates are turning yellow. Three girls in an arbor are at work, making up a funeral wreath of laurel and pansies; one offers us flowers.

“Here,” said Patsy, giving the elder ten francs, “make a cross; take it to Caterina at the campo santo, ask her to put it on the grave where they buried Domenica an hour ago.”

“That’s the most encouraging sight that we have seen in Messina outside the Mosella,” he said, “people are beginning to buy flowers for their dead.”

Punctual to the minute, Caterina tapped on my door.

“Come in, cara mia, and choose your dress.”

Spread out on the sea-moss bed were several frocks; I hoped Caterina would like the blue dress, or the scarlet jacket and green skirt; she didn’t even look at them, but pointed to a black skirt and bodice, made by Sora Clara, seamstress late of Bagnara.

“Might it be this?” Then grown bold she asked for a dress for her mother’s sister.

“She has been more unfortunate than another, because she had more to lose! When Zia Maddalena went back to her house to get the money hidden in her mattress, it was gone. Poveretta!”

“Why didn’t Zia Maddalena keep her money in the bank, instead of that foolish place?”

“One must hide one’s money somewhere. Cousin Sofia had hers all in her pillow. She never forgot it but ran out with it under her arm.”

Immense sums of money were lost in this way. Sicilians distrust banks; the majority keep their money hidden in their houses. The thieves, knowing this habit, knew just where to look.

We chose a dress for Zia Maddalena and one for Cousin Sofia; then Caterina took us to call on her relations. We found them hard at work, building a little shack from what looked like American lumber. Zia Maddalena, a gay little old woman, with a load of boards on her back, scolded her two small grandsons.

“Do me the favor to work a little faster, Checco. The rain will begin before we have the roof on. Birbante! Are you not ashamed? You are slower than a sheep.”

Caterina made us known to aunt and cousin. Zia Maddalena welcomed us; Sofia, sitting on the ground, suckling her infant, smiled and nodded.

“I have lived on this spot for thirty-seven years,” the old woman began. “She was born here,” pointing to Sofia. “Do you think I would live anywhere else? Later we shall have one of the American barracks. The Signore will speak to the Sor Comandante of us?”

Sofia handed the baby to her mother, picked up a stone for a hammer and began to nail down the roof.

“That’s the little scamp who steals the nails from camp,” said Patsy, “a handful at a time. Look at the size of his fist!”

I gave Zia Maddalena the garments we had brought.

“Good!” she said, “so we shall have something decent for Pasqua, black too; are we not both widows? She lost her husband, I mine, but she saved her money. Well, what’s to be done about it? We are alive, that’s always something.”

Zia Maddalena was stout of heart; she had nothing but smiles for us.

“I hope they can have one of the barracks,” I said as we walked back to camp.

Patsy of course knew all about it.

“When the houses are finished,” he explained, “Belknap will turn them over to the local authorities. He’s been pestered for them already, especially by Messinesi who claim to be American citizens. The allotment of the houses

won’t be an easy job for anybody; the municipality must tackle it. There’s a good fighting chance for our friends. The aunt of Caterina is the grandmother of Gasperone. She is officially connected with the camp, a person of influence!”

We were picking our way through almost impassable streets, climbing mountains of debris. At one place we found ourselves on a level with the second story of what had been a handsome bedroom. The front of the palace had fallen into the heap of ruins on which we were standing. Two white beds stood side by side. On the wall hung a costly mirror without even a crack. Near the door were two trunks and a valise with the labels of several fashionable continental hotels.

“The people who lived here?” I said.

“Under the ruins; they had just returned from their wedding journey,” said Caterina.

That afternoon J. took me to the Villaggio Regina Elena on the other side of Messina. Like our camp, it is beautifully situated on the edge of a torrente, facing the straits. As we drove over the fine road, I could hardly credit what J. told me, that both road and village had been built since the earthquake. We were met by two Italian officers; one carried J. off to look over the site for the American quarter here, the other offered to show me the Villaggio.

The butcher was just taking down his shutters, opening shop for the afternoon. The bakery stood opposite; the smell of fresh bread floated from the window. The baker’s wife sat sewing in the doorway; a baby, swaddled stiff as a papoose, lay in her lap.

“Enter, enter!” she said hospitably. “Will the Signora be pleased to see the oven?”

She threw open the iron door; a brushwood fire roared and crackled in the black cavern.

“He has made one baking already; see how light the bread is!” She broke a small loaf to show what good bread her husband made. The officer tasted a morsel.

“Va bene,” he nodded. “Tell Pietro I am content.”

As we walked about the village, the officer told me its brief history:

“Built for the Queen by the sailors of the battleship, Regina Elena, and the soldiers of the 19th Infantry. It has been an immense fatigue—that cannot be denied. O! the rain, rain, rain, that’s been the worst of it. The sailors had a change of clothes, it wasn’t so bad for them; our soldiers had but one uniform—when that was wet, there was no other to change. So many have died, some from exposure—they were poorly nourished, they gave half their rations to the starving women and children—some from blood-poisoning, poverini! If one had a little scratch, a mere nothing, on his hand when he went on duty, excavating the ruins, taking out the dead—bah! a pin-prick was enough!”

The houses are neat and comfortable, painted white and whitewashed over the paint, as double precaution against vermin. Each house has a porch and wooden steps. The village is under military control; a kindly control one saw that, as every man, woman, child we met had a smile for the Capitano.

“What is that building?” I asked; we were passing a small house with barred windows.

“Alas! Signora, it is a prison. Discipline is necessary—our men are good fellows but they are human—a firm hand is the kindest in the end.”

We passed through the Via Principessa Mafalda and the Piazza Giovanna, named for the little princesses, to the Piazza Emanuele, the center of the village life. The tiny church stands here, a tall flagpole with the national flag of Italy directly before the door.

“It has cost us more trouble to build this than all the rest,” laughed the Capitano. The chapel contains an altar, a confessional and a cupboard for the vestments, books and mass vessels. There is no room for the congregation; they must stand or sit outside for the service.

 

“It has been a little hard—during the deluge; that must come to an end; in general, as the Signora has heard, this is a fine climate!”

As a child keeps the biggest plum for the last, my officer had kept the school, the crowning glory of the Villaggio, for the end.

“Opened on the 7th of March, Signora, nearly a month ago, at her Majesty’s desire. She did not wish the children to lose a year’s schooling—they have not lost much time, these little ones, have they?”

School was over, the children scattered; the captain sent a lad for the schoolhouse key.

“Her Majesty sent all the books and

furniture from Rome. See the nice little desks, the little chairs. Here are the copy-books. This belongs to the son of that woman you talked with, a fair hand for a nine-year-old, non è vero?”

He showed me the text-books, the maps, the teacher’s records, the sum in subtraction on the blackboard, the prancing horse a clever scholar had drawn below it.

“It’s one of the best equipped village schools I ever saw,” I exclaimed.

He glowed with pleasure—he loved the Villaggio as a man only loves the thing he has created. From the wall behind the teacher’s desk, the grave kind face of the young Queen looked down upon her school. We found J. still discussing the site of the American quarter with his officer.

“With respect, sir,” said J., “it’s my opinion that this is the best site—the view is incomparable.”

“Unquestionably true, but the ground slopes; to level it will cost immense trouble and fatigue. This other land behind here—“

“The trouble will not be counted, sir; for a hospital the higher ground, the better air, the prospect, surely are important. Her Majesty would, I feel sure, prefer the site that the Comandante Belknap finds most desirable—“

Both were earnest, polite, adamantine; but I knew that Captain Belknap’s site would carry the day!

 

I did not learn till later that my officer was Captain Bignami, an heroic figure in the drama of Messina. From first to last he was the staunch friend of the Americans. His name, like Captain Cagni’s at Reggio, is one that Italy will hear more of; it was never spoken in our camp without some word of praise.

It seems a poetical justice that sailors should have done so much for Messina, for it has always been a hospitable port for the ships of all nations, since the first Phoenician trader crept timidly along the African coast, made a dash across the straits, and felt his way into the harbor. It was one of the trysting places for the ships of the world. The sailors heard of its destruction with a shiver of regret; with a haunting memory of its lovely shores, splendid with pomegranates, golden oranges, dark glossy carob trees, silver olives; where the joyous notes of the tarantella echoed by day, the languid music of the serenade by night; where the air was cool with the kiss of snowy Etna; sweet with the perfume of many orange groves.

It was dark when we arrived at Giardini, a poor fishing village, the station for Taormina. After the stuffy smoking carriage, the fresh salt air on the cheek felt like a caress. Ciro, cousin of Gasperone, was recognized by his white horse, his yellow wheels; he adopted us on sight, tucked us, hold-all, camera and Gladstone bag, into his minute cab, sprang to the box, cracked his whip.

“Hotel Timeo?”

The white horse, blind of one eye, bravely began the stiff three-mile climb. Below us was the beach; we saw the pale tossing of the surf, heard the waves break with a roar, hiss across the sands, sigh as they slipped back to the sea. At each turn of the road the lights of the fishermen’s huts at Giardini shone dimmer, the twinkling lamps of Taormina brighter; the keen savor of the sea grew fainter, there came a whiff of mignonette.

“Behold the garden of his Excellency the Duca di Bronté,” Ciro pointed to a row of white columns, glimmering in the darkness.

Bronté, the name of the old Sicilian Titan, means thunder; a good title for that modern Titan, Lord Nelson, the great admiral, the friend of Italy. History repeats itself; his descendant, the present Duke, leader of the British relief work here, has proved the hereditary friendship. In 1799 the estate of Maniace and Bronté with the title, Duca di Bronté, were conferred in perpetuity upon Lord Nelson and his descendants. The present Duke, the second son of the house, inherited the title because he devoted his life to the care of this valuable estate, famous for its vineyards, almond and olive groves. I have heard Marion Crawford tell of a visit to Maniace, of the picturesque old house, the moat, the Norman church, the regiment of armed retainers, the feudal state the Duke maintains. When you meet the Duke in London, he is the Honorable A. Nelson Hood. Isn’t that a splendid pose? An English “Honorable” is worth more than a foreign title of Duke. Ah, that’s the grand spirit that makes England what she is, that makes us what we are today! Later I found out the history of that garden. The Duke bought the land, meaning to build a house and make a garden at Taormina. It was found that the soil was not firm enough; it lay too thinly over the great rock. The architect could not guarantee that the whole hillside would not come sliding down into the sea—at least this was the gossip of Taormina. The Duke, therefore, had to be content with his garden. It is a perpetual joy to all who pass up the long hill; by day you see its white columns shining in the sun, its flowers spread like a rich Persian carpet; by night you catch the glimmer of the pillars, the scent of mignonette.

Hotel Timeo (named for Timæus, the great historian of the place) is a creature-comfortable house where the guests dress for dinner. Two fashionable American ladies sat at a table near ours, a family of Sicilians in deep mourning farther away. At a glance we saw that the guests were all men and women of the world.

“Quite a contrast to the camp,” said Patsy, as the French waiter brought our consommé. “Don’t you miss Gasperone, the Africano, the carpenters sitting below the salt?”

Early next morning nightingales and blackbirds called and called me to the window. I stepped on the balcony and saw Etna at dawn, clear against a pearl-gray sky. The mountain rises out of the sea to an enormous height; it is snow-covered at this season a third of the way down. In the crystal clearness of early morning the summit was unclouded; the smoke was blown from the cone like a gray feather.

Two hours later Assunta, the Sicilian beauty, who brought the breakfast tray with honey, white bread and golden butter, threw wide the shutters.

“The Signora will eat outside? It is the habit of the strangers.”

 

In the South spring comes with one stride, as night in the tropics. It was here. A jessamine clambered up from the garden, bringing its starry blossoms, its delicate perfume; a tall lemon tree in full blossom, a rose tree touched the balcony—I leaned down and picked a blush rose. Beyond was a feathery mimosa, covered with fine yellow flowers; splendid savage cactus plants raised their armed spikes like spears; a pergola was lost under an amethystine rain of wistaria, an arbor hidden by the harsh glory of bourganvillia; a row of amphoræ, that once held wine or oil, overflowed with purple heliotrope. On a wall stood a jewelled bird, the prince of peacocks, sunning himself, his long tail sweeping the path. Below lay the turquoise sea, the scalloped shore, the long point of Naxos, tawny sand, rimmed with white foam; in the lovely bay a fishing boat slipped before the wind. Beyond Naxos the sloping line of Etna begins, rising grandly from the blue sea; the flanks are covered with white villages, shining in the sun. Slowly, smoothly, the line mounts and mounts, broken here and there with little mounds. The color is smoky blue to the snow-line. Now the smoke, instead of blowing aside, hangs above the cone in two snowy rings. On the shore glisten the white houses of Giardini; close at hand is Taormina—the old city wall, the flame-shaped battlements of the Badia, the clock on the cathedral. The hum of bees as they delve in the flower-cups, rifling honey for their hive—honey that Assunta will in turn ravish for some stranger, fills the air; the ceaseless chirrup of the tree-toads makes a soft alto to the bees’ treble; the fragrance of the flowers floats up like incense, that delights yet does not stupefy; every sense is fed on beauty. Is not this the one perfect hour to which one might say “stay”?

A sense of terror comes after I have watched the cone of Etna for an hour. Sometimes when the little white puffs of smoke stop, my heart stands still. While the great monster blows out his rings of smoke, I feel safe; in those moments of suspended breathing there is terror. It is as if I were listening to the long breaths of a sleeping giant, who, when he stops breathing, may awake and destroy me. The tension is over, he breathes again; his breath goes up in a white feather, like the souls of dying saints as the Italian primitives painted them, coming out of the mouth in a white scroll. This is a place of fearsome beauty; to choose it out of the wide earth for a home, to establish one’s house here, shows a gambler’s nature. What if that great monster should awake, pour out his deadly floods of scorching lava on farm, villa, town? Etna must have counted for much in forming the fiery Sicilian nature. The Swiss, from looking on the iron calm of their dead snow-capped mountains, have caught something of their steadfastness. The Sicilian has before him day and night this splendid savage creature, sleeping now but sure to wake again, whose sleep means life and safety, whose waking means death and torture; how can it but affect his character? The very grapes grown on its flanks make potent inflaming wine; if its fever is in the blood of the grape, a thousand times more is it in the hot blood of its men and women.

The earthquake? It is as if the giant had turned over in his bed, shaken his great shoulders, brought down town and city, destroyed a district, snapped ancient temple columns like pipestems, crushed cathedral and hut alike in one awful blood-curdling welter of pain, that has darkened the earth, made the whole world mourn.

These words—I copy them exactly—were hardly jotted down in my diary, when I was startled by a violent barking of dogs, a terrified braying of donkeys, the groan of cattle, then—the earth heaved like the sea, once, twice, thrice! Next complete silence; for a long moment Nature held her breath. Men, beasts, tree-toads, were silent; not a leaf stirred, the very winds were stilled.

The shocks were light; we had felt far worse at Messina, but there we had expected them.

“There has never been a severe terramoto in Taormina,” said Alessandro, the porter of the Timeo. “That is why the forestieri have settled here. The town stands on solid rock and cannot be shaken. There is nothing to fear.”

Every person I met said the same thing. As the day wore on, the strange faintness born of the earth tremors passed away, yet during all the weeks we stayed at Taormina the memory of it lingered. The giant who sleeps below Etna had but turned in his sleep; if he should awake and roar at us as he had roared at those others!

We spent much of our first day in the old theatre; Patsy had been there since dawn.

“The larks were singing when the sun leaped over the Calabrian mountains,” he said; “with their help and the custode’s, I have reconstructed the theatre as it was in the Greek time, before the Romans made it over. The stage is better preserved than any I have seen; the arena is finer at Italica—you remember?”

Italica, Italica by Seville, the song of the bees, the scent of wild thyme—unforgettable!

“Look at that pretty girl perched up there! She is posing for a picture of Sappho. Lucky you can’t see the artist, a fellow with a beard and pipe!”

Yellow blossoming sage, asphodel, mint, lavender, glossy acanthus with its exquisite leaves, its lilac spikes of flowers, grow in the old theatre. I gathered a small acanthus leaf, and smoothed it between the leaves of a book for comfort in the days to come. Do you know why the Greeks plucked out the very heart of Beauty? Because they lived with beauty. Their minds were formed, perhaps their very bodies were affected by the beauty that surrounded the race from its beginning. The lines of their hills and coasts; the colors of their sea and sky are the most beautiful on earth. Their eyes were trained by these things, their imagination roused, their minds exalted. Like Greece, Sicily is noble in its very foundation. Strip it of trees, of flowers, of grass, the beauty of its lines remains indestructible.

“Come up to the little museum; it stands where the small temple over the theatre used to be. There are some good architectural fragments—bits of mosaics and inscriptions from the theatre, a good torso of Bacchus, a head of Apollo.”

Patsy introduced the custode, one of the characters of the place, who welcomed us and showed his few treasures with a fine pride. He spoke Italian with chiseled care.

“To hear him talk, after the dialetto, is like listening to Beethoven after rag-time!” said Patsy. “Do you realize how fortunate we are that the tourist season is spoiled by the earthquake? We have the theatre and the custode all to ourselves? It’s too good to be true!”

The custode sold him a green pamphlet, with the story of the theatre in four languages. The pair of them clambered about, map in hand, exploring the stage, the cunei, the proscenium, while I sat and tried to imagine the captives and slaves at work here, hewing this vast theatre, that could seat forty thousand people, out of the solid rock.

“The next time we want to build a new theatre,” Patsy exclaimed, we should send the architect to Taormina. The man who planned this understood theatre building. The Greeks didn’t write about scenery, but they always put their theatres and temples where they got the best view. See how simple, how practical, how grand, this must have been! There went the stairs, leading to the seats of the nobility—look, here’s the name of one cut in the pavement, Iopeia, supposed to have been a priestess. She had a good seat at the play. Imagine—she sat here, heard the Antigone of Sophocles, between the acts looked at Etna! Happy Iopeia! I hope she deserved all she got. It must have been worth while to be a stockholder in this concern. Listen to the repertory: ‘Tragedies, devoted to Dionysius, Comedies to Demeter, Satires, Spectacles, Dances.’ The place was never shut like our theatres; it was the social centre of the town. When there was no performance going on, poets and philosophers met and discussed their theories, read aloud their works; foreign ambassadors were received here. Down below is the passage leading to the arena, where the wild beasts were driven through. We don’t want to see that; it belongs to the coarser Romans, to the time when they had gladiator shows like our prize fights.”

Here a party of English people came upon the scene, the first travelers we had seen since we left Naples. They were evidently from the white yacht that lay anchored near Naxos. They scrambled about the theatre for a little, then went up to the museum.

A tall slight man, in a yachting cap, evidently the host, interested me. He had the face of an American, the voice and manners of a Britisher.

“Do find out who they are,” I said to Patsy; “I am sure he is somebody.”

“Bother somebodies!” laughed Patsy. “We don’t want to hear about anybody except Iopeia; and listen to what the custode says—” he read from his floppy green pamphlet: “‘The theatre was built in the time of Andromachus. The foundations of most of Taormina’s monuments were laid under his government, as for example, the theatre, the forum, the temples, the aqueduct. He brought to this place the good taste and high culture of the Greeks of Colchis.’”

“The lady with the pretty yellow hair—look at her, Patsy—haven’t we seen the face before?”

He would not look, would only talk about Timæus, the son of Andromachus, and what a fine historian he was.

“I am sure it’s a face I know,” I persisted. Nothing would bring Patsy back to today; he was wandering in the golden age of Sicily. The porter of the Timeo told me about the travelers:

“The Princess Henry of Battenberg. The tall man? Sir Thomas Lipton. They came on his yacht, the ‘Erin’—there she goes, you can just see her!” The “Erin” had passed Naxos, headed for the great blue promontory sixty miles away, Syracuse!

Taormina is a fascinating town, with little Saracenic touches everywhere. The architecture is of a dozen different styles and epochs, the prevailing impression that remains is of Sicilian Gothic. Many façades are inlaid with a pretty diaper pattern of black and white lava stone. The Palazzo Corvaia has a quaint relief of the creation of Eve, the Fall, Adam digging and Eve spinning with a distaff.

Taormina clings like a gray limpet to the gray rock; the town is built on a narrow crescent, on one side a precipice, on the other

an abrupt mountainside. The old Greek theatre stands at one point of the crescent, the Dominican convent at the other. The two face each other; between them runs the main street, perhaps a mile long. In the people we meet, there is the same bewildering contrast of types as in the architecture. Ciro is a Greek; his profile is classic as the head of Apollo on a coin fresh from the mint of Taormina; Assunta is a Roman, coarser, heavier, but with a certain force that has its charm.

We gravitated naturally to the cathedral of San Nicolò, pausing outside to look at the fountain surmounted by the oddest figure of a Minotaur, with the head of a man and the body of a bull. The fore legs are missing; the quaint emblem balances perilously on its hind legs. The old name of Taormina was Mount Taurus, so called because the two points of the hill on which it stands, from a distance, look like the horns of a bull. Later it was called Tauromenium, the abiding place of the bull. One of the architectural details that delighted us was a sort of Saracenic rose window, repeated over the main door of several of the churches.

We entered the cathedral by an enchanting door, encircled by a vine, covered with bunches of grapes, boldly carved in stone; the vine springs from a classic vase on either side the portal. Later we found this same design in other Sicilian churches. There are several at Palermo, none, however, that compare with the grape-vine at Taormina.

An old dame, who had loitered in the offing, hobbled ahead to lift the leathern curtain and earn her two sous. She was bent, wrinkled, wise looking. Of course Patsy annexed her; for him the people, no matter how dirty or dull, are always of greater interest than the place.

Before the high altar stood a carved, gilded wooden statue of San Pancrazio, the African, dressed in his best robes, wearing his finest jewels, mitre and gloves. He was mounted on a paso (platform), like those we saw at Seville in the Easter processions. Opposite stood a similar figure of San Pietro. As we were looking at them, Ciro tracked us down—when he had no fare he haunted Patsy’s footsteps. He said a sharp word in dialetto to the old woman—something equivalent to “hands off”—we were his legitimate forestieri; had not Gasperone recommended us to him?

“San Pancrazio—molto bello.”

“When it comes to beauty,” said Patsy, “don’t you prefer Ciro’s style?”

Ciro, warm with running, his young face glowing, his eyes like gems, was certainly handsomer than the poor old bedizened negro saint.

“It is the festa of San Pancrazio perhaps?” I asked, puzzled to account for his presence before the altar.

“No. After the earthquake San Pancrazio was brought here, and for the moment remains,” said Ciro. “Some people say, how do I know if it is true, that he caused the earthquake? He has great powers, he protects against dangers of land and sea. Lately, for one reason or another, he has been neglected—it is true, when I was a child they made far more of his festa than now.”

“Maria Santa is my witness,” cried the woman passionately, “that for two years next to nothing has been spent for the patron’s festa! There were warnings: an old crone appeared to a contadino and, waving her stick, cried three times, acqua, acqua, acqua leggiera, then she disappeared in the clouds. The contadino from that day was seen no more. Behold! three weeks before the earthquake, the acqua leggiera came—it was a cloudburst, bad enough but nothing to what came after—if we had only taken warning!”

She wiped the saint’s foot with her apron, kissed it, and wiped again as good manners demand.

 

“Behold! here is money for two candles; let me see you light them.” Patsy gave her a franc.

“May you be blessed, by Santissima Maria, by all the saints, by the Apostles! The ignorant say that San Pancrazio and San Pietro were brothers—a madness! Saint Peter was a Sicilian, white as the blessed Lord himself. San Pancrazio was a Moor, with a black skin as you see. The truth is, their mothers were sisters and they were cousins. The morning of the terramoto we carried San Pancrazio to the Piazza outside there and showed him to the sea. It was a terrible sight! The water had been drawn back one hundred metres; we saw all the rocks at the bottom, the great fish leaping in the air. After a moment a big wave came high, high, and remained on the shore. It broke the boats, tore the nets; one fisherman was drowned. When the wave saw San Pancrazio, poco à poco, it went back to its place.”

“It was pitch-dark,” murmured Patsy, “nobody saw anything.”

“Enough, enough, nonna,” Ciro interrupted, “the signori are in haste! To San Domenico now? I will call the custode, he is my friend.”

“What does that strip of black cloth nailed across the shutter signify?” Patsy asked, as we walked towards San Domenico.

“Mourning,” Ciro explained. “Wherever you see it, you may know that in the house dwell refugees, or people who have lost relations in the earthquake.”

Every third house in Taormina had this mourning badge.

Waiting outside the church of San Domenico, were two gentlemen from Turin, a large urbane man, and a slight taciturn person who never spoke. Patsy, who apparently knew them, began asking questions about the church.

“I have not yet seen it,” said the urbane man, “but I hear it is the best in Taormina—“

San Domenico is a fine old church with a soft cracked bell; we liked it far better than the cathedral. The custode, unfortunately, was a layman; he knew his lesson well, however.

“This,” he said, pointing to a curious picture, “is San Domenico. Observe the manta, real silver, and the chasing—ah! there is but one finer, the manta of the Madonna at the Matrice in Messina.”

The saint’s head, painted on wood or canvas, was set into the manta, a square of wrought silver, very Spanish in feeling, that filled the entire frame.

On a quaint old tomb a warrior in armor, a crusader from his crossed legs, lies uneasily on his side. His name was Giovanni Corvaia; he built the palace of that name.

“Come see the organ,” said Patsy, “it’s like Saint Cecilia’s in the Domenichino picture.”

The organ stands in a damp side chapel. It is of wood, painted a soft green, with gilded pipes and ornaments.

“Molto antico, four hundred years old and still in use,” the custode declared. “Will one of the gentry be pleased to play? I will blow the bellows.”

The urbane Torinese took his seat at the organ; the custode raised the lid of the keyboard. There was but one bank of yellow ivory keys, much worn by pious fingers.

“Four octaves,” said the Torinese; he measured the notes with a musician’s hand, then began to play an air from Pagliacci. The organ’s voice, like an old artist’s, was still sweet and true, though uncertain and tremulous. As he played the Torinese talked over his shoulder:

“You know this air—yes? and this? You like our Italian composers? Tell me where you will find their match! Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Boito—for me his Mefistofile is the noblest of modern operas.”

“Come!” cried Patsy, the concert over, “I have found two portraits of a jolly old monk, who spent his whole life beautifying this church. First, look at his work. This pulpit, these choir stalls—aren’t they lovely?”

When we had admired the richly carved pulpit and choir, Patsy took us to the sacristy, where the carving is even finer than in the church. The figure of San Domenico asleep on the ground, the roster of the order he founded, growing like a genealogical tree out of his side, is charming. The figures of saints and martyrs, some of them full of dignity and beauty, are held up by pairs of chubby children, playing on pipes and cymbals; meant for angelini, they look far more like amorini. The wood-carving, evidently by the same hand throughout, rises to heights in the figure of Christ in the sacristy and Saint Michael in the choir.

“Un capo lavoro!” cried the Torinese. “It has been shockingly neglected though; I must write to the Prince about it!”

The monk could illuminate a missal as well as carve a choir; the custode assured us that the handsome parchment music-book in the choir was the work of the same monk.

“Here’s the old fellow’s signature to his magnum opus,” said Patsy, “carved on a panel of the choir: Hoc opus fieri fecit ad deis, etc., etc. Fr. Joseph Alermo, 1602. The frate’s Latin is queer, but we know what he means. Here he is young, there he is old, painted by himself. Wood-carver, illuminator, portrait-painter, well done, Fra Joseph!”

In a room leading to the sacristy hang the monk of Taormina’s two portraits of himself. The first shows a jovial full-blooded man in the Dominican habit, holding a skull in his hand; below are the words: Junior fui et fecit illum. The older portrait is much defaced; the motto in Fra Joseph’s queer Latin remains clear: Eterni servi et feci istud.

“That was a man with good red blood in his veins,” said Patsy. “We have all fallen under his spell! That’s because what he did, he did with all his might. Joseph—could he have been English?”

“I believe he was German,” said the Torinese. “He must have passed his life in Taormina though, to live in this place of unparalleled beauty, to enjoy an existence devoted to art and religion—beato lui!”

As we left the San Domenico, Patsy and the Torinese had some discussion about paying the custode.

“It’s my turn,” I heard Patsy say. “You paid last night.”

“You are Americans?” the Torinese asked.

“Yes.”

“Let me do so little for the people who are doing so much for Sicily. If you come to my city, do me the favor to call—I have not a card, alas! May I write my name on yours?” Patsy had no card. I produced one of J.’s, and the Torinese wrote his name and address on the back.

Those days at Taormina slipped by as a chaplet of odd and even pearls slips between the fingers. Now and then it poured, and we would come home drenched to the skin, glad for once of the steam-heater to dry our wet garments. Those rainy days were the uneven pearls; the others were each rounded from dawn to dark to a sphere of perfect beauty. Whether Etna was all visible, or all hidden, or half revealed, we always felt the great presence, were never for one moment out of its influence.

“Hullo! this must be Mr. Wood’s studio,” said Patsy, pointing to a picturesque sign, “why not go in?”

Mr. Wood lives in a dignified old palazzo. We were made welcome, and spent a delightful afternoon, poring over a portfolio of water-colors; pictures of Etna in its countless moods, at every hour of the day, from a hundred points of view.

“No work since the earthquake,” sighed the painter.

“That’s not what they say at camp.”

“Well, no work of my own; there has been too much to do!”

As we were having tea, Mr. Bowdoin happened in; later, several English and American Taorminians dropped in. This was one of the colony’s social centres.

“All of us here,” said Mr. Wood, “had a narrow escape. We had arranged to go to Messina on the 27th of December, spend the night and hear Madame Butterfly. At the last minute the manager changed the opera to Aida; we had all heard Aida so often that we gave up going. The hotel where we would have stayed was destroyed; all the opera singers perished!”

We tried to talk of other things, a dozen subjects were started—in vain, it was impossible to get away from that all-absorbing topic, the earthquake. One and another told their experiences, letters were read, extracts from journals. With our new friends, we lived over again those dreadful days, when we in Rome were torn with anxiety about them, because no word came from Taormina.

“The Sicilians are a strange race,” said one; “they talk loud over nothing; when something really hurts, they burn dumb; at heart they are a melancholy people. Here at Taormina they had a bad earthquake, a bad tidal wave. In the beginning the poor were dazed, but the first clothing distributed was collected by a Sicilian woman, who performed an act extraordinary among people so Oriental as the Sicilians still are. She went from house to house, at the tail of a cart, gathering clothing. This lady does not leave her house alone twice a month; Sicilian women, even by daylight, mostly go out in twos and threes. Her house was turned into a factory for cutting out and making clothes and mattresses. The money I was able to get together for her, bought an incredible number of mattresses—incredible except for the fact that she and the women of Taormina made them up themselves. A sister of this woman went about the village, asking for helpers to go down with her to meet the trains. At first Sicilian men and two English women went with her. Later the forestieri waked up and with their greater command of money of course accomplished much more—the work of the foreign colony here has been splendid; but it was not the foreign colony that started the work; the impulse was Sicilian.”

“I see you like the Sicilians,” I said.

“I love them,” said my new friend. “Give them three words of dialetto, and you will see; there are no warmer hearts in the world.”

 

Though we never saw Miss Hill, we heard of her everywhere. She had provided the necessary sewing for our camp; she had defended carloads of lumber destined for a wretched hamlet, that had been seized by the people in a larger and less needy village, One morning, when it was too wet to be out of doors, we went to see Miss Hill’s school of needlework. The names of the streets we passed through delighted Patsy,—the Lane-behind-the-nut-tree, the Alley-behind-the-Cathedral. In a pleasant workroom a bevy of girls sat at work, learning to make the lovely Sicilian drawn-work and embroidery. Before Miss Hill started her school, these industries were among the lost arts.

“The shops are full of our patterns,” said the manageress tartly. “They learn them here and then go away and make them for any one who will pay them!”

“That’s the test of the school’s usefulness, isn’t it?” I asked. Impossible to resist the lovely Sicilian embroideries and drawn-thread work, Patsy and I bought all we could afford.

Taormina is like Cornish, the chief personage in the place is the mountain. There is much rivalry among the colonists as to who has the best view. You go to make a visit, first of all you must make your respects to the mountain. I thought of dear blue Ascutney, whenever I was asked to pronounce for or against each new view of Etna, from hotel terrace or friendly garden. One of the best was from the old house on the Corso, where we went one afternoon to tea, with Dr. and Mrs. Paton. The stemma over the door bears the column of the Colonnas, the lily of the Farnese; these familiar emblems of two famous old Roman families made us feel at home at once. We had arrived punctually on the minute of half past four; so had the prince of peacocks. Walking sedately to the side of his mistress, he fed daintily from her hand, his jewelled neck shining in the sun, the splendor of his fan unfolded.

I had read Dr. Norris’s letters from Taormina in those early days, when he and Mrs. Norris were among the most active relief workers. We picked up the threads and I listened to the story of this and that family these dear people had succored. They had invited to meet me a Sicilian lady, who had escaped, almost miraculously, from Messina, a fine energetic young woman, half Italian, half German by birth. She gave me a firm grasp of the hand, and was able and willing to talk with me about her own experience.

She had waked at the first shock, put a pillow over her face to protect it from falling plaster, held firm to the sides of her bed, and the next minute found herself in the street, perfectly safe, without a scratch—her room had been in the fourth story! All her family, except one sister in Switzerland, were killed—parents, brothers, sisters; their bodies were still buried in the ruins. The sister in Switzerland had gone mad with grief.

This girl believes that the loss was harder on her sister than it had been on herself.

Dr. Norris said that the sentiments of many of the survivors were paralyzed; that everybody being in more or less the same case of having lost all their friends, they accepted it as a matter of course. It seemed part of the natural order, and easier to bear than if they alone had been singled out to bear a crushing blow. Some sense also of having been among those preserved, it often seemed miraculously, stayed them. The people who had been buried alive for three days, however, do not recover; they have a fixed look of horror. That side I cannot bear to dwell on,—the dreadful number of lingering deaths!

Some of the cultivated people we met, who have lost every one belonging to them, showed a calm, a manner of putting it all behind them that is admirable. The grief for one person, greatly loved in a family, casts a greater and longer shadow apparently than these awful catastrophes. It seems also that nothing that happens to any one else can affect us as much as what happens to ourselves. Those people who have looked death in the face and escaped seem, almost against their volition, to bloom out and to rejoice in life itself, even though they seem to have lost everything that makes life dear. I must confess that I felt this with the people who had come into property by the death of all their families, and not with those who had lost everything. I suppose this is perfectly human and natural.

Our last day at Taormina we had tea in the enchanted garden, with some of our Sicilian friends.

In an upper room of the Timeo, Tetrazzini was singing (through the Victor) the great aria from Mignon; when it was finished, Caruso sang his song from l’Africaine.

“To hear the Etna among tenors, while we are looking at Mt. Etna,” said Patsy, “gives one a faint idea of what the old Taorminians enjoyed in their theatre!” The music over, we sat talking with our friends. One of the men, a professor, lassoed and caught round the neck a little green lizard; very soon the pretty creature was quite tame.

“Be thou quiet or I shall hurt thee, little one!” said the Professor, as he cut the lasso, and the lizard ran away with a necklace round his throat. The talk ranged wide, of books, operas, artists, everything but what was at hand. Finally the Professor held up a warning finger:

“Listen, the nightingale! He never says the same thing twice—while we—” he shrugged his shoulders, picked a scarlet poppy and stuck it in his coat.

 

“That’s Luigi,” said Patsy, as we waited for the Syracuse train on the platform at Giardini, “that beautiful old fellow with the white beard! Bonanno told me about him. He was driven quite mad by the earthquake—benevolently mad, he’s perfectly good-natured. His mind is destroyed, as far as today is concerned. What’s left alive is the most interesting thing of his life—he was one of the ‘Mille;’ he sailed from here with Garibaldi for Calabria in 1860, nearly fifty years ago—he must have been a mere boy then, can’t be so very old now—looks hard as nails. The arrival of a train seems to be his link with the past. He meets them all, and marches up and down the platform, singing patriotic songs. He doesn’t beg; I tried to give him something the other day, and he would not take it.”

As the engine slowed down, the old fisherman drew himself up to his great height and saluted. A fine man, with something very Spanish in his bearing, he must have had a drop of Castilian blood in his veins. His skin was tanned as leather, his eyes blue as the sea, his hair and beard of virile silver. As the guard blew the whistle, Luigi threw up his right hand, waved it gallantly over his head, charged across the platform, with the old cry of the Hunters of the Alps:

“Italia e Vittorio Emanuele!”

In the railroad carriage the people laughed. Patsy looked back at the old fisherman with that odd brightening of the eye, that in a woman ends in tears.

Down at Naxos burned a brushwood fire. The thin column of smoke mounted high in the breathless air. Here stood the altar to Apollo, where the Greek mariners, before they sailed back to Hellas, lighted a sacrificial fire.

The only sounds in the quarry came from over our heads; first there was a soft rushing of wings, as a flock of birds alighted in the tree-tops, then the confused twittering of their voices as they chattered busily together; a bevy of quail had halted to rest on its flight from Africa to Europe. We listened to their plans for the next stage of the journey; orders were given, questions asked, signs and counter-signs exchanged. Then came another soft whirring noise, the sky was darkened by the shadow of wings, the air filled with sounds of flight—the aerial army was gone. We were alone again in that place of agony, “the Gethsemane of a nation,” the quarry where nine thousand Athenian captives languished and perished in their prison grave. Alone? no! Shadows of the broken remnant of that great army, that came to Syracuse to conquer and to crush and was itself crushed out of existence, crowd about us. We feel their presence, as we felt the birds’, even though we cannot see them. Here in the Latomia dei Capuccini, a hundred feet below the surface of the earth, the bitterness of that defeat is tasted again. The place that heard the groans of those sorrowing and dying men still claims its tribute of tears, and will while the imperishable spirit of Hellas rules, while from generation to generation one Grecian lives to repeat the dreadful story of Thucydides.

No defeat was ever so unexpected. The Athenians, led away by the eloquence of their evil genius, Alcibiades—he was then thirty-five years old—the wittiest, bravest, handsomest, most worthless of men, had gone mad over their anticipated victory. They would become masters of Syracuse and the other Greek cities of Sicily; when Trinacria was conquered, Athens would take Italy, Carthage, the western islands of the Mediterranean. So Athens dreamt of the empire that, five centuries later, Rome built. In 415 B.C. the Athenians began the war with Syracuse that ended in such terrible destruction, and led to the downfall of Athens. The Athenians were at first successful; they built a double wall around Syracuse, they seemed on the point of reducing the city, when something happened. Some say the total eclipse of the moon frightened Nicias, the vacillating Athenian General; others that the Athenians were made prisoners between their own lines of defence by reinforcements from perfidious Sparta, at the moment when the Athenian ships under Demosthenes were cut off by sea. The overthrow was so complete that not a ship escaped, not one man went back to Greece to tell the tale. Nicias and Demosthenes happily committed suicide; those others were left to rot and die in that living tomb, where for ten weeks long the dead and the living lay together. Months after a traveling merchant told the story of the disaster to a barber in Piraeus, supposing all Greece knew it.

The glaring stone quarry, where the Athenian captives were exposed to the burning sun by day, the bitter cold at night, while the gaily dressed Syracusan ladies, scent bottle in hand, peeped over the parapets, watching their agony curiously, is now a place of extraordinary beauty. We climbed down a flight of a hundred stairs to reach this subterranean garden, a solemn and romantic spot. The primrose colored walls of the old quarry are hung with a splendid tapestry, knotted ivy, and long trailing creepers of madre selva, clematis, the mother of the wood. Here and there, from some cranny in the dazzling limestone, a fig tree thrusts its strong green leaves up to the sun, the flame of the pomegranate glows beside the gold of oranges and lemons, long lines of lilies stand waiting to bloom for Easter. In the midst of this sunken garden of delight stand the busts of two great men the Syracusans of today delight to honor, Archimedes of Syracuse and Mazzini of Genoa.

“Amerigo, behold! thy compatriots! Piano, piano, so; that was a good riverenza!”

The father of Amerigo (porter at our hotel), a smart fellow dark as a Moor, patted his son, as the child, tugging at his scarlet cap, made us a deep bow.

“Americano, yes, born in Nuova Yorka! I was butler to a great family—they paid me sixty scudi a month—go back? oh, yes! We came to see our parents once more, ma come si fà? The schools of Sicilia are not like those of Nuova Yorka. We go back for the little ones, though I myself am content here, è un bel paese!”

We were the only guests at the Villa Politi, a good inn near the Latomia. I thought it melancholy to sit at meals alone in the big dining-room; Patsy argued that we were better able to “reconstruct” ancient Syracuse in solitude than if surrounded by a lot of interesting people.

The Greek Theatre gave me my first overwhelming sense of really being in Magna Grecia; the beauty of the lines of the semicircle, the tiers of seats rising one above the other; the permanent feeling of the work hewn from the bed rock, are all extraordinarily impressive. The custode, a serious olive-colored man, was full of serviceable knowledge. As we listened to his talk, some small creature ran over my foot.

“Have no fear, Signora, that little animal is the friend of man; I owe him my life. Sitting here alone, I sometimes fall asleep in the sun, there is danger—“

“Fever?” Patsy interrupted.

“Ma che, no fever here, vipers! This one, he runs before the viper and makes a noise—zzzzz—like that to give warning. If I doze he wakes me, yes, even if he has to touch my face.”

“You are a Syracusan?” I said.

“I? a Roman! Twelve long years I have served in Siracusa—an exile, Signora, they have forgotten me! Oh! to see the cupolone once more—tira, tira!” He meant that the cupola of St. Peter’s drew him back to Rome.

Patsy mentioned Commendatore Boni; the custode was on fire. He begged us to speak to the great capo at Rome, perhaps we could get him “moved on?” He himself had a friend, a gentleman of influence, if we would see him, something might come of it—one never knows.

“We have no influence, we are forestieri—” I began.

“Si capisce,” said the custode, “allow me at least to write the name of the gentleman.”

We had not a scrap of paper among us; I found a card of J.’s however; on the back of this the custode wrote the name and address of the gentleman with influence.

I asked the custode to take us to the Roman amphitheatre.

“Patienza,” he said, “what haste? Imagine! in this place the plays of Euripides were given, here Æschylus recited his own dramas!”

“Euripides again!” cried Patsy pulling out a book. “Listen to this: ‘Among the Athenian captives in the quarry, there were some who could repeat long passages from Euripides’ plays. These men were favored far above others; some were even freed for the poet’s sake, and long afterwards went back and found him and thanked him, branded as they were, for life and liberty.’”

The custode waited patiently, then took up his thread:

“Over there,” he pointed to the Roman amphitheatre, “the Romans pitted wild beasts against each other, sometimes against men. A Spanish priest, a great personaggio in the Church, had the arena excavated—you know the fanaticism of that people—on account of the Christians martyred there. The amphitheatre is not interesting—in comparison with the theatre, one understands.”

“He’s heard students talk,” said Patsy; “he’s all for Greek antiquities, has a proper scorn for Roman. Don’t you find it lonely here?” This last to the custode, in whose life and character he was already deeply interested.

“There are diversions,” the custode told him; “in other seasons, many visitors come; I have talked with almost all the sovereigns of Europe. The learned too from all over the world—what questions they ask! For this one I collect the weeds, for that one the butterflies. This year on account of the disaster, you might say, nobody comes—behold my companions!” He pointed to a white goat with curled horns cropping the grass in the old theatre; two beautiful little black kids frisked and butted each other at her side.

“The animals belong to you?”

“To my son; he has gone to Anapo for fish, also for papyrus; it grows there as nowhere else; they say the Moros planted it. That goat is a famous milker,—even after the young ones have fed she gives half a brocca of milk!”

The ancient Via delle Tombe lies just above the Greek theatre; it led to the city and must have served as a thoroughfare for the living as well as a burial place for the dead. The road-bed is deeply furrowed with ruts of ancient chariot wheels. On either side are the tombs, rifled centuries ago; tombs, street, and theatre are all hewn out of the solid rock; the race that made them, built as no race builds today, for all time!

“Behold the depths of these ruts,” said the custode, “those narrow ones were made by the funeral cars.”

“It’s like Pompeii,” said Patsy;—“those old tracks hit harder than all the rest; they make the place alive as nothing else does.”

“Ci rivedremo?” said the custode as we parted. “The Signori will come again? They should see the sunset from here. The view of Syracuse, the great harbor, the Ionian sea is famous.”

“O, yes, I shall come back,” said Patsy. “Lonely, poor old chap,” he continued, as we drove off; “I shall have to make some photographs of the theatre and the goats.”

 

All of ancient Syracuse is intensely interesting. It is filled with the great shades of the past; we felt them all about us, just as we had felt the presence of the birds in the tree-tops over the old quarry. Modern Syracuse is disappointing; a little provincial town with narrow crooked streets lighted by electricity. Could this ever have been “the largest of Greek, the most beautiful of all cities?” The splendid capital of Dionysius and Hiero, the home of Theocritus? Today Syracuse has shrunken again to the size

of Ortygia, the island where the original Greek settlement was planted. The five prosperous towns that once surrounded the central city have disappeared; the magnificent harbor alone remains unchanged; it could still hold a fleet of battleships.

“Where can we get the best view of Greater Syracuse?” Patsy wondered; “it must have been very like Greater New York. The central city built on an island in a magnificent harbor surrounded by five cities and connected by a bridge to the mainland. You can see the remaining ruins of the five cities on this map—see here they are, they correspond quite well to Brooklyn, Hoboken, Jersey City, Staten Island and the Bronx!”

We had fixed Sunday afternoon, our last day, to deliver a letter of introduction to a lady of Syracuse; our time was so short we could not risk being tempted with hospitalities! When the hour for the visit arrived Patsy “begged off!”

“That old Greek fort of Euryelus,” he began, “I didn’t half see it the other day—the English officer I met in the catacombs says that Archimedes invented the catapult for its defence. He says it’s still so solid it could be repaired to stand a siege—an old-fashioned one of course—like the siege of Troy!”

“You more interested in an old ruin than a new acquaintance?” I cried. No use, for once Patsy deserted me.

On the way to deliver the letter I stopped at the cathedral, formerly a Pagan temple. The baroque façade is disappointing. Where are the remains of the temple, of the costly treasures Verres carried off to Rome, and got soundly scolded by Cicero for, in consequence? To get back to that time you must go over step by step what has happened since then. In the seventh century the temple was turned into a Christian church by Bishop Zosimus, in the eighth it became a Mohammedan mosque; temple, mosque, cathedral, it has served its purpose of worship well! When my guide, a bright-eyed boy, rattled off his lesson, the place immediately grew interesting. I found the temple’s superb Doric columns—they are whitewashed now and hard to discover—imbedded in the cathedral walls; at the sight of them the church vanishes, a splendid temple stands in its place. Near this deep-fluted column, may have knelt Simaetha, the deserted girl, imploring help of Artemis to win back false Delphis—hark, her old cry echoes through the ages:

“Three times do I pour libation, and thrice, my Lady Moon, I speak this: Be it with a friend he lingers, be it with a leman, may he clean forget them, as Theseus of old forgot the fair-tressed Ariadne!”

“There will be a baptism,” said the boy, “if the lady cares to see the font—“

I looked at the curious baptismal font, while the sacristan lighted his candle in preparation for the rite. The font is a classic vase, resting on twelve quaint Phoenician-looking lions of green bronze; an inscription states it was a gift to Zosimus. Who was he? A god, as one book says, or the Bishop, or a pagan historian, who criticizes Christian emperors over much? Either way, it was strange to see the ancient vase used as a baptismal font, to witness the casting out of the old Adam from a new-born baby by a cross apoplectic archpriest, who so frightened the infant that it roared horribly as Adam departed.

“You are the son of the custode?” I said to my guide, a lad perhaps eleven years old.

“No, I am the custode!”

“And your father, what does he do?”

“Oh, he is a custode too.”

The lady, to whom I had the letter, received me cordially. She lives in an old palace, with large high rooms, and modern furniture. I pleased her by saying how much we admired the dark Syracusan type; I did not see one blonde in Syracuse.

“Your women have superb hair,” I said; “they dress it beautifully.”

“You noticed that? I have seen women without shoes, whose coiffures were finer than those I saw in Paris. They are extravagant. Imagine! my washerwoman has her hair dressed; she pays a franc and a half a month to a hair-dresser—you should see her; her coiffure is almost as good as mine.”

“That would be difficult; your hair is magnificent.”

“All my own—see, hardly a white hair, just two or three over the temple. When I was young, it covered me like a cloak, but what can one expect at sixty?”

“Sixty—it’s not possible!”

“Yes, my festa was a week ago; how old should you have said?”

“Less than forty.”

It was true, she was the youngest person for her age I ever saw. A tall shy man now came in followed by a brown lupetto dog.

My hostess introduced me. “An American lady—she brings a letter from the Contessa Q.—she would be welcome without it—we know what the Americani are doing, Signora. I myself saw the good warm clothes the American Capitano landed here. O, the Prefetto was glad of those garments and those medicines—what was the name of the ship, Arturo?”

“There were several; thou referest to the Celtico.”

“What a kind man was that captain—he spoke French like a Frenchman and the young biondino who kept the lists; tanto simpatico!”

It was pleasant to hear of the “Celtic’s” good work in this very foreign house, of Captain Huse and of Paymaster Jordan ycleped il biondino!

“Did I tell thee,” said Arturo, addressing my hostess—he was too shy to speak directly to me—“that the sailors of the American fleet made up a purse of sixteen thousand francs for the families of our mariners smitten by the disaster? It is a fact of piety and comradeship not to be forgotten.”

“Thou sayest well. Hast thou not a glass of wine, a bit of cake to offer?”

Poor Arturo, thankful for any excuse to escape, lurched out of the room followed by the lupetto. He was one of those painfully shy men whose greatest intimacies are with animals, as dumb as they themselves would like to be.

“Your husband—” I began.

“No, no, my son!” she interrupted, laughing till the tears came to her eyes.

“My son, the eldest; not a good son; he has married against my wishes. Children are nothing but vexations; to be happy one must be childless!”

I tried to change the subject by asking Arturo’s profession.

“He has no profession, no ambitions. His father was in the Legislature, as was my father. Arturo is satisfied to live in the country, to make wine, to raise sheep, goats, swine. That is very well, but it is not enough. He should see the world, pass a winter in Rome; but no, he thinks only of his vineyards and his sheep, Madonna Santa, his goats—my son!”

Arturo returned, followed by a servant bringing refreshments. He poured the wine, held the glass to the light, handed it to me with a deep bow:

“Your health!”

“This is exquisite—so light—it’s like some Syracusan wine I had at Taormina;” I mentioned the name.

“That is not an honest wine,” he was all alive now. “I should not advise you to take it. This now is pure; be not afraid, it cannot hurt you!”

“It’s hard to get wine in Rome at any decent price nowadays,” I said.

“What do you pay a flask?”

“We are fortunate, we do not pay forestieri prices, we have it from a friend for two francs—“

“If this suits the Signora, we can make an arrangement to send her a quantity, direct, not through the hands of an agent—they are all robbers!”

When I thought I had stayed long enough, I rose to go.

“It is early,” said my hostess, surprised at my haste, though we had talked for over an hour; there is more time in Syracuse than in some places.

“My cab has come—“

“The Signora will drive in the Passeggiata Aretusa? Everybody goes there Sunday afternoon; there is music, it is just the time. Shall I accompany her?”

“It would be most kind.”

“No, no, a pleasure! Take my keys, Arturo, be sure you give them to none but me.” She bustled about briskly; in a few minutes was ready for our drive. “I will show you more people worth looking at in half an hour than you would see alone in a week.”

Arturo helped us into the cab; as we drove off he bowed with a certain rustic awkwardness not without its charm; he pleased in spite of his plainness. He is not fitted for courts or capitals, but just for the country life he likes; I am sure his flocks flourish, I know his wine is good; even in Syracuse, mothers are not always the best judges of a son’s capacity.

In the Passeggiata Aretusa the band was playing Cavalleria Rusticana. The pleasant

promenade, facing the harbor front, was crowded with people dressed in their best. The Syracusans walked up and down in family groups, father and mother behind, children in front, or sat upon benches in threes, young girl, young man, and the inevitable chaperon. There were few carriages, only one with pretensions, an antique barouche lined with mulberry cloth; coachman and footman wore liveries to match; horses and harnesses were fresh and handsome, the whole turnout was of the style of fifty years ago. The scene had a strong Spanish flavor. In Italy you expect to find the population on a festa afternoon assembled in a piazza, the proper social center of every Italian community; in Spain the social center is the alameda, a long shaded promenade with seats and space for people to pace and talk. In the interval “between the selections,” we paced slowly up and down. My friend was a person of distinction; all the best-dressed people bowed very low to her. At one end of the Passeggiata the crowd was so great that we halted near a pool, enclosed by an iron railing.

“Ecco la fontana Aretusa,” said the lady; she had been so busy bowing to right and to left, that she had hardly spoken since we entered the drive. The Fountain of Arethusa! Another of Sicily’s delicious surprises; in this fairy-land you meet old friends every moment.

Arethusa! At her very name, the opening words of Shelley’s poem ring through the memory:—

Arethusa, you remember? the lovely maiden of Elis, who was seen bathing and pursued by the river god, Alpheus. The maid, appealing to Artemis, was changed to a fountain, whereupon Alpheus mingled his stream with hers, and they both sank into the earth, passed under the sea, and rose again in Ortygia:

Would you know how she looks to an artist? The next time you are at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, look at George Fuller’s lovely picture of Arethusa, and you will learn.

The fountain rises from an arch in the rock and spreads into a wide picturesque pool, where papyrus and water lilies grow.

The concert was over, the band put up their instruments, the crowd began to disperse; it was time to leave the Passeggiata Aretusa. As we drove back to the lady’s house she pointed out a large building.

“See, they have nearly finished that labor—who knows when it would have been done if it had not been for the earthquake? The American Mees Davis had a hand in that.”

“You know Miss Davis?” I asked.

“If I know her? Per Bacco, who does not? I tell you that woman is a marvel! You have heard what she accomplished after the earthquake, she and the German Dr. Colmers? We had three thousand of those poor creatures to feed, house and clothe. Magari! it would have gone hard without the help of that woman—and what influence, what power she possessed! She had but to ask, no matter what, it was granted—money, but thousands of scudi; work-rooms, the Sindaco gave her three in the Palazzo Municipale.”

Miss Davis! That is another story; it has been told elsewhere, will, I hope, be more fully told by Miss Davis herself. She had come to Sicily for a vacation, having so overworked herself that the trustees of her Woman’s Prison at Bedford insisted she should take a few months’ rest. The day after the earthquake she offered her services for relief work. Syracuse was fortunate in having a good Prefect, a good Mayor, doubly fortunate in having two women of power among the volunteers—Miss Davis and the Marchesa di Rudini, daughter of Mr. Labouchere, the editor of Truth. Miss Davis had with her just six hundred dollars; this she promptly spent for the relief work. Her first purchase was two hundred francs’ worth of pocket handkerchiefs. She had besides, what the American Committee in Rome had, faith unlimited in the heart of America; that is better than a bank account.

“From the point of view of actual achievement,” writes Mr. Cutting, “and also of example, Miss Davis’ feat at Syracuse seems to me the most important single contribution to the problem of rehabilitating the sufferers from the earthquake.”

This praise was borne out by all we saw and heard at Syracuse.

Miss Davis opened a hospital for the wounded; and work-rooms where all, who could sew, were employed to make clothes and bedding for the horde of almost naked refugees the Russian, English, German as well as the Italian ships brought to slumbrous Syracuse. She was one of the prime movers in the relief work at Syracuse, that the Duke of Genoa said was the best organized of all he saw. Each man was set to work at the thing he could do; the tailors made clothes, the cobblers made boots, the masons, carpenters and painters were employed to finish a large public building that stood half completed. So these poor people were enabled from the first to earn their own living, to escape the dreadful pauperization that in Rome, and almost everywhere else, confronted them. There remained the “poor things,” the men who had no skill, no trade; what work could be invented for them? Miss Davis was now entrusted with large sums of money, the spending of it was left to her judgment. From the first she maintained that among the able bodied, only those who worked could be fed. It would have been far easier to issue rations, or so much money a day to the profughi: those methods did not suit the “Angel of Mercy.” She looked about her, found the roads in a bad condition; organized and kept at work a road gang, mending the roads of Syracuse.

The tributes Miss Davis received are wonderfully touching. A poor organist from Messina composed a song in her honor, dedicated to the Tortorella (turtle dove); the Sindaco sent her a diploma of honor, beautifully engrossed with the coat-of-arms of the city; most precious of all is the address, signed by a long list of her profughi, addressed to the “Gentile Miss,” the sublime “Heroine of Charity,” who is saluted “in the name of the great heart of Ortygia, the center of the ancient world!”

 

“After Taormina, Girgenti is the most beautiful place in Sicily,” Patsy declared.

“Some people say Taormina is the most beautiful place on earth; if you like to measure—“

“I don’t—I couldn’t—so many places seem best! Wait till you see the temples though; there’s nothing to compare with them outside Athens.”

We had arrived at the port of Empedocles at sunset, and driven through the violet dusk up to the town, glowing like a jewelled city on the heights overlooking river and harbor. I had gone direct to the comfortable Hotel des Temples, a mile outside Girgente, where again as at Syracuse we were the only guests. When we met at breakfast, Patsy had already explored the place.

“We ought to have kept more time for this,” he said; “for us it’s even more interesting than Syracuse.”

“Girgenti—” I began.

“Call it Acragas, the Greek name, or at least Agrigentum, the Roman,” Patsy interrupted. “I’ve made friends with the custode of the Temple of Zeus; he’s like the others, a superior man—here in Sicily they all seem a cut above the same sort on the mainland.”

Breakfast over, I was hurried to see the Temple of Zeus and Patsy’s new friend. He welcomed us with effusion and lamented the scarcity of tourists. Patsy asked him to what nationality the larger part of his traveling public belonged.

“German,” he said. “I always know them because they walk.”

“They are economical?”

“In part for that reason, also because they see more on foot than driving.”

“Americans all come in cabs?”

“It is true, but they are mostly ladies. Touching those Germans, before 1870 they traveled very little; now they come in crowds. The Kaiser sets the fashion; he comes every spring to Syracuse, often to Girgenti. What a lot of German architects and men of science were here this time last year! They study, they measure, they make drawings, they return, they measure again—oh, intelligent! One cannot deny it, if not so sympathetic as others—Americani for example.”

The Temple of Zeus is a vast ruin; hardly one stone remains standing on another. The mighty pillars lie where they sank; their bases are still in place, the drums that composed them have fallen asunder; you can trace the relation of part to part as they lie forlorn and disjointed on the earth. A sandstone giant, that once upheld the roof, lies on the ground; he reminds us of the Colossus at Thebes, even more of the carved wood colossi that held up the great organ of the old Boston Music Hall. The Temple of Heracles, near the Temple of Zeus, is no better preserved; these vast ruins arouse a feeling of sadness and confusion. To what end were they erected, with such incredible labor, if they were to be so utterly destroyed? It was futile, discouraging, hopeless!

“There, there!” said Patsy, “that’s the reason I brought you here first. Now come and see the great glory!”

“Notice one thing more,” said the custode, pointing to a bit of cornice that lay protected from the weather by a large fragment. “You see this white coating like fine stucco? The six temples of Girgenti were all built of sandstone, yet they must look like marble. Oh! the ancients knew some things we have forgotten! White marble was brought from Greece, ground to a powder, mixed with mastic and spread over the sandstone; the temples of Girgenti shone white as the Parthenon itself.”

“I should like to think so,” sighed Patsy; “now they tell us the marble surface was painted over with blue, red and green decorations.”

“It was a protection as well,” said the custode. “See, the stone is friable; if it had not been for so many centuries covered with this stucco, it would have been worn away by the sirocco.”

We walked through olive and almond groves to the Temple of Juno, standing lonely and grand on the edge of a precipice. Lavender morning-glories, blue iris, yellow daisies, grow about the broad steps. After the desolate ruins we had seen, this looked, in comparison, almost a complete building. We climbed the stair to the roof; against the gray-green of the olives, the emerald of the almond trees, the flower-gemmed grass, the rich amber color of the colonnade glowed dull in the sunlight.

“It’s more like Pæstum than anything else,” said Patsy, “only I do not find the roses of Pæstum that bloom twice in the year. Will a bit of myrtle do as well?”

The Temple of Concord, even better preserved than the Juno, is the most admired. The site of the Juno is more picturesque; the staircase to the roof gives an extraordinary sense of nearness to the time when this was a living place of worship, not a dead ruin.

At the Cathedral of Girgenti instead of being made much of, we were made to feel that we were in the way—they were preparing for the services of Passion Week—no time for forestieri, a resolute monk gave us to understand;—we managed to steal a look at a lovely marble sarcophagus, with scenes from the tragic story of Hippolytus carved in high relief. We went to the Museum, a neglected dreamy place with a few real treasures: an archaic marble statue of Apollo, very lovely, with the fixed Æginetan smile; a gold belt, three thousand years old, with a buckle exactly like one I wore.

“The Signori are Americans?” A handsome old man, poring over a big book, looked up at us, as he asked the question of the attendant. The man whispered something in his ear; then the old gentleman closed the book and came to greet us with his faraway smile.

“That grand and majestic country, America, is not egotistical,” he explained when he had welcomed us to Girgenti. “What vibrant sympathy it has shown our country! We are egotists, it is the curse of our people; but I revere America most, for the wondrous new science that has come from there.” He beckoned us to look at his big book; an Italian translation of a vulgar work on spiritualism, illustrated with cheap spirit photographs.

“The last thing I should have expected to find in Agrigentum!” sighed Patsy.

“You have some knowledge of spiritismo?” said the stranger.

“Oh yes, we know all about it!” Patsy assured him.

“Last night I paced up and down the room for twenty minutes with the great Sesostris—it was his wish to talk with me, the medium, a wonderful woman, ascertained.”

“How did Sesostris look?”

“Majestical! He was dressed all in white; though not so tall as I, he has a noble bearing.”

“What did he say?”

Little that was new, it appeared, though the old gentleman repeated the conversation, as well as those of Plato and Socrates, with whom he often talked. While he rambled on, the attendant, a fat perspiring man, was visibly embarrassed—he too wished to talk about America. As we took our leave he found his chance.

“Behold, this came from San Francisco,” he pointed to a hideous porcelain medallion, with a photograph of a man and a woman, hanging from his buttonhole, “a portrait of my son and his wife, non c’è male?”

“The Signori will return?” said the old man, hovering between us and his big book. “They will let me be of some service to them?”

We would gladly have returned, our new friend is one of the most learned archeologists in Sicily; but, alas, he would only speak of materializations and controls—his book was full of the gross impostures we used to hear about years ago, before the high-grade mediums of these later days and their dupes came to the fore.

“Think of the things he could have told us!” groaned Patsy. “What a wasted opportunity!”

Not far from the Museum we passed a flaring placard with the words:

“At the Theatre of Empedocles will be presented the Cinematograph of Edison.” Here in ancient Syracuse, the ends of the earth are brought together—Empedocles and Edison; what a combination!

My last impression of Girgenti is of our visit to a little church—the name is forgotten—and of Patsy’s chatter about what we saw there.

“This,” he said, as we walked along a dusty road of “splendor-loving Acragas,” “is the Temple to Demeter and Persephone, though you wouldn’t know it if I didn’t tell you.”

The little church shows few traces of the ancient temple. Its chief treasure is a famous crucifix, that hangs against the wall, surrounded by votive offerings, wax models of hands, feet, breasts and stomachs (very like those of terra-cotta I saw at the Temple of Juno in Veii), the most gross things of the kind I have seen in a Christian church.

“A lady who had paralysis of the hands,” said the cripple who served as cicerone, “promised the Lord, if he would cure her, to pay him this compliment. Eccelenza, she had faith—aimé if we all had her faith—she was cured. My grandmother herself saw this thing. Those two wax arms she hung up in gratitude, they cost a horror; she gave the prete ten francs as well for the poor. It is a miraculous crucifix, davvero, but to deserve the miracle one must have faith!”

From an olive grove came the sound of a shepherd’s flute; the thin sweet music of the pastorale was the only sound that broke the noontide quiet as we sat outside the old temple of Demeter and Persephone, dreaming!

“It all happened here,” said Patsy. “It was through these very fields Persephone wandered picking violets when Pluton, king of Hades, sprang from a dark cave and carried her off to his kingdom underground. Then came the mother Demeter, in her hands the sceptre, corn, and the mystic basket, searching for her lost daughter; she lighted Etna for a torch to show the way; she looked high and low, she asked all she met for news of her child. Kyane, Persephone’s playmate, alone had met Pluton carrying off the maid, and because she begged him to set free her friend, Kyane was turned into a beautiful spring (that very spring where the custode’s son went for papyrus). The voice of Demeter was heard calling Persephone, Persephone, through these very fields and meadows. In vain! Persephone, even if she heard her mother’s voice in the dark kingdom of the dead, could not return; she had eaten the seed of the pomegranate, she was the wife of Pluton. There was a great to-do; Olympus was shaken to its foundations. Demeter refused to attend the counsel of the gods, she laid a spell upon the land so that it bore no fruit, no wheat, and was threatened by famine. In the end however the matter was arranged, the family became reconciled. Zeus gave Sicily to Persephone, as a wedding gift; the daughter now spends half the year in her mother’s house, and half in her husband’s.”

So he repeated the lovely old fable-allegory of the seed hidden in the earth half the year, and half the year alive again. How it echoes in the thunder of the burial service!

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

Paul had been at Eleusis; he knew the mysteries, had perhaps seen the ancient marble bas-relief in the temple there of Demeter laying in the hand of Triptolemus the precious grains of corn!

As we approached Palermo the pulse of life quickened; at every station carloads of merchandise awaited transportation, golden oranges, paler gold citrons, sacks of almonds, casks of wine, vast quantities of sumach.

At Castel Termini, near the great sulphur mines, stood long freight trains laden with huge fragments of beautiful yellow sulphur.

“Remember that day the smoke lifted and we got a good look into the crater of Vesuvius?” said Patsy. “You were very much taken up with the pale yellow velvet lining of the crater, and wanted to rip it out for an opera cloak. That brimstone is exactly the same color; I suppose it’s the same stuff.”

At Acquaviva there were more freight trains loaded with blocks of sparkling rock salt.

“Salt must be cheaper here than in Rome,” said Patsy. “When I asked your Agnese for a handful to put in the electric battery, she was horrified at my extravagance.”

“Agnese buys it by the pound at the tobacconist’s; it costs like gold dust.”

Here a fat gentleman reared up from his nest of newspapers in the corner. “Salt is free in Sicily,” he said; “we do not tax it as they do in Italy. For a few soldi you can buy a kilo of the best, the most fine. What you see is mineral salt, virgin salt, and comes from a cave in the top of the mountain; there is none to compare with it!”

“There is no salt tax in Sicily,” said a small neat man who looked an avvocato. “It would be useless; each one would then make his own. You need only take water from the sea, put it in a pan, set it in the sun—via! the water evaporates, and leaves salt as good as this!”

“Not so good!” roared the fat man, “miserable, inferior salt!” The veins in his neck swelled with anger.

“Isn’t all salt pretty much alike?” Patsy put in soothingly.

“Per Bacco, no! It is all different. The salt from the sea, who knows what nastiness gets into it? This salt, pure and fresh from the bowels of the earth, has soda and other valuable minerals mixed with it; there is no comparison, me spiego?” (Do I explain myself?) “Here, go thou, Teodoro; bring a little bit of salt that these signori may know I speak the truth!”

Teodoro, a handsome bearded young man in high brown shooting boots, had just entered the carriage; we had noticed him walking up and down the platform with a pair of pointers in leash.

“Va bene.” Teodoro nodded good-naturedly to the fat man, evidently his father, left the car, and walked leisurely across the tracks to the freight train, followed by a porter. He touched a cake of shining crystalline salt too big for one man to carry.

“Pronto!” cried the guard, lifting his horn.

“Wait,” roared the angry man, thrusting his head from the window. “Che animale! don’t you see my son?”

“Break it, corpo di Bacco! break it,” laughed Teodoro. The porter pushed the glittering block of salt from the truck. It crashed on the pavement broken in two. Teodoro picked up the larger piece, dusted the splinters from his coat, then without a sign of haste stepped on board.

“They must be great chiefs,” murmured Patsy, as the guard tootled his horn, and the train crawled out of the station.

“A thousand thanks,” I said to Teodoro, as he put the salt in the net over our heads.

“It’s too bad to give so much trouble.”

“Nothing—a pleasure!” Teodoro had the nicest laugh, the whitest teeth. He and Patsy made friends on the spot. They sat chatting gaily by the further window while the angry father wrangled with the little avvocato, who exasperated him more and more every time he spoke. They were in the midst of a hot dispute when the angry man broke off to point out a trolley that runs from the top of the mountain to the station where the salt is loaded on the trains.

“Guardi, Signora, there is the place where this pure, this exquisite salt is excavated from the entrails of the earth. Me spiego?”

We had just reached a white river. Its banks were lined with nespole, palms, fig trees, gray asphodels, bushes of green carob. From the top of the mountain one cobweb line of black crossed another; two iron baskets passed each other on the aerial railway, one ascending empty, the other descending laden with shining salt.

“What a pleasure to see life, movement, activity after the desolation of Calabria and Messina!” Patsy exclaimed.

“Davvero! This should be a rich country; our people are hard working, frugal. We need only a little foreign capital to restore La Sicilia to her ancient greatness. Crispi[1] saw that—if we only had a few such men today!”

“I have heard Crispi speak in the Camera—what an orator! Once at Baron Blanc’s I talked with him,” I murmured.

“As to capital,” said Patsy, “are your taxes favorable to foreign investors? I met a man last winter from New York representing a syndicate; he had five millions to invest in Sardinian mines. He looked into it, found the taxes prohibitive, and left Italy without spending a cent. All that good money is now invested in the Argentine.”

“Taxes! We do not tax lemons as you do in the United States; on the contrary in the summer, when they are necessary to the health of the people, they are sold in our great cities by the Government at less than cost!”

“Has us there!” said Patsy. “People in New York are paying forty cents a dozen for lemons while millions of them rot on the trees of Sicily because—on account of our damnable tariff—it’s not worth while to gather them!”

We were passing a small forlorn station without stopping.

“Behold!” The angry man pointed to a lemon grove that bordered the track. “What a beautiful picture!”

The trees were bowed down with the weight of lemons; the ground beneath was yellow with the precious fruit that would lie there till it had turned black with decay.

“We have to thank America for that,” said the angry man.

“Say something to that rude person,” I whispered to Patsy.

“There’s nothing to say; he has us on the hip.”

“What does it mean?”

“How can you expect a waif of the universe, just back from the Argentine, to know the ins and outs? It’s some beastly log rolling. The lemon-growers in Florida, California,—how do I know what States have swapped votes with some of the big fellows,—you protect me, I’ll protect you!”

“Politics, all politics,” roared the father of Teodoro. “Una porcheria, mud, mud! I know; my son here has just been defeated at the election by an animal! This one gave each voter five francs. ‘Elect me,’ he said; ‘when I am elected, come back; I will give you five francs more.’ This piggery all comes to us from America. The Signori can tell us. Is there not bribery and rioting at your elections?”

“As to bribery,” said Patsy, “I suppose that has existed since the beginning of time. Rioting? The elections go off quietly enough in our town.”

“Quietly, per Dio! Last night I was at the Café Greco when Z., who writes the articles signed Piff Paff, was there. Tale came in and said to him: ‘So it is you who please yourself in writing lies about me?’ This one took a chair, that one a bench—pim poom! Mirrors were smashed, bottles broken, a farce—piggery—me spiego?”

“The elections should have been put off,” said the small avvocato. “We in Sicily have enough at this moment without that business; but no, the politicians care more about keeping their men in than about their distracted country, desolated, ruined by the most consummate disaster the world has seen!”

Grudgingly Teodoro’s father agreed; he would have preferred to disagree. A man of intelligence, feeling, sentiment, not a man of power.

He had a low forehead, dark, angry eyes, a swart color that showed Saracen descent. All his good qualities—I am sure there were many—were nullified by his volcanic temper, that without rhyme or reason burst forth, devastating the hour as an eruption of Etna blasts the lovely vineyards and olive groves, and turns them into burnt lands that produce nothing.

In the silence that followed, Teodoro’s gay lilting voice was heard imparting advice to Patsy.

“For Palermitan dishes? Go to the Ristorante Trinacria, order pasta con sarde, baccalà à ghiotto, melone d’inverno, zibibbi, a fiasco of Vino di Zucco—Ah, behold us arrived at Termini—here is made the best pasta (macaroni) in Sicilia.”

At Trabia the little avvocato hopped briskly off the train and returned carefully carrying his bandana handkerchief filled with eggs.

“They cost a horror at Palermo; my wife always asks me this favor,” he explained, as he stowed away three dozen eggs in his lawyer’s bag.

After Trabia our fellow travelers fell asleep worn out by much conversation, and we were left to enjoy the marvelous scenery as we approached the Conca d’Oro, the Golden Shell in whose midst stands Palermo, the old Panormus—all-haven—of the Greeks. The road runs between the mountains on the right and the sea on the left,—a narrow strip of land ’twixt yellow sands and gray-green hills. Now and then we caught a glimpse of some valley of paradise, with locust and Judas trees among the groves of oranges and lemons with their “golden lamps in a green night.” We passed many Saracen water-wheels with irrigating trenches running through fertile fields. Between the exquisite airy blue hills that jut out into the sea and the emerald valleys, the way crossed many torrenti, dry stony water-courses descending from the mountains to the shore. These torrenti (the first we saw was the Torrente Zaera at Messina) are characteristic of Sicily. For a short time in early summer, when the snows on Etna and the Madonia mountains are melting, there is water in them, but for the greater part of the year they are empty ravines. J. saw them used in turn for roads—he even went through one in an automobile—for stone quarries, for gravel and sand pits, and for the washing and drying of clothes.

Sicily, the granary of the Romans, still bears three simultaneous crops in the neighborhood of Palermo. We saw olive groves planted with grape vines and wheat,—all three seeming to thrive. The suicidal destruction of the forests has had the same terrific effect upon Sicily that we saw in Spain, that we see today in the United States. After the arid, poorly cultivated regions we had passed through, it was comforting to rest our eyes on the lovely verdure, that, thanks to the Arabs, still surrounds Palermo. The innumerable wells, pumping machines, norias, the astonishing richness of the soil, reminded us at every step of Granada, the lost paradise of the Moor. Here, in the Conca d’Oro, as in Granada, the labor of those truly great agriculturalists, the Arabs, still beautifies and enriches the land they loved.

Looking down upon the Golden Shell from a height, the plain seems literally paved with the gold of oranges, lemons, mandarins and citrons. It is one immense continuous fruit grove of the orange tribe, intermixed with Japanese medlars, mulberries, almonds, figs and olives. The Conca d’Oro takes its name not only from its extraordinary fertility, but from its shape. Behind Palermo the airy mountains draw together, the plain narrows almost to a vanishing point; as it approaches the sea it widens out into what is variously called a shell or a cornucopia.

Palermo is alive! When still far off we had felt its life pulse throbbing stronger and stronger; when we were in its midst, we knew this was the heart of Sicily. We arrived at the Hotel des Palmes in good time for dinner. The fine dining-room was filled with gaily dressed Palermitans. After the loneliness of Syracuse and Girgenti it was pleasant to find ourselves again among people full of the business life. Even at the Timeo in Taormina, we had been in the shadow of the disaster; all the Sicilians there were in deepest mourning; the few foreigners were all connected in one way or another with the earthquake.

At the next table to ours sat General Mazza, his wife and their charming young son. There was much jesting, and we heard the words Pesce d’Aprile continually. Across the room at another table sat a pair of beauties in blue and rose color, the center of attraction. Young Mazza was called away in the middle of dinner by a message that a lady must speak to him at the telephone. Looking very important, the boy left the room. Then the word was passed (all the guests seemed to know each other well) that this was a Pesce d’Aprile. The young fellow returned to find the pretty girls scoffing, the elders on a broad grin. He blushed furiously as he sat down at the table again, where the General, his father, very gorgeous in a handsome uniform, and his vivacious mother received him with jeers. He made an amusing gesture to his tormentors, hammering one thumbnail upon the other.

“Hello, it’s the first of April; Pesce d’Aprile is their name for April fool!” said Patsy.

How good it was to hear their merry laughter, to see these young people brimming over with the joy of life!

After dinner we sat in the long corridor and, while the Palermitans read their papers, flirted, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes, Patsy and I, like two traveling merchants, took account of our stock of knowledge.

“What do we know about Palermo?”

First of all we know its agony. A city, like a man, is remembered longest for what it has suffered. Sicily has had three great agonies; they loom large through the mists of history as the three promontories of Trinacria loom out through the sea mists to the sailor feeling his way around the island.

First: The Athenian defeat at Syracuse.

Second: The Sicilian Vespers at Palermo.

Third: The great earthquake at Messina.

The Sicilian Vespers is the name given to that terrible uprising of the Sicilians in the year 1282, when the people turned against their French king, Charles of Anjou. The fire of revolt had long smouldered, and it was blown to a flame on Easter Monday when a French officer named Drouet grossly insulted a Sicilian woman. Her husband avenged the outrage by killing the officer. Just as the bells of Santo Spirito, a church of Palermo, rang for the vesper service, the voice of the angry husband roused the holiday crowd:

“Now let these Frenchmen die at last!”

The cry echoed through the length and breadth of Sicily, and every French man, woman, and child in the island was massacred; the insult was wiped out in seas of blood!

Palermo, or Panormus, never amounted to much in the old Greek time when Syracuse was mistress of Sicily. It’s so alive now, because, like Rome, it has lived a long life and is still vigorous. Its greatness really began when, in the ninth century of our era, the Saracens came, saw, and conquered the island and made Palermo their capital. First the Saracen, then the Norman, last the Spaniard, have held and loved Palermo; these three have ruled her, made her what she is, left their mark upon her. We have already seen the Moor’s vivifying touch, in the springs that murmur, the fountains that dance, in the earth still bright with flower and fruit he planted, rich with the wheat he watered!

The Normans! Their conquest of Sicily is just as remarkable, quite as romantic as their

conquest of England. We know comparatively little about it, because we have not the same keen interest in what befell Sicily as in all that happened to mother England, but for their contemporaries there must have been little to choose between the importance of William the Conqueror and his strong breed, and those twelve stout sons of old Tancred de Hauteville who, from the condition of Norman squires of Cotentin, became in one generation, kings of Sicily, the richest island of the Mediterranean. The Battle of Hastings took place in 1066; in 1061 Robert Guiscard, and his brother Roger, the Great Count, sons of old Tancred, conquered Sicily and made Palermo their capital. What have the Normans left behind them? A great art: Churches, cloisters, mosaics, tombs, monuments worthy to stand on the island of the Greek temples, still reckoned among the wonders of the world.

Our first days in Palermo were mild and cloudy—good sightseeing weather; on the golden days that followed it would have been hard to remain indoors, even within such splendid interiors as the cathedral of Monreale and the church of the Martorana. We went first to the Capella Palatina in the royal palace, the finest royal chapel in Europe. A certain stately order, an aristocratic atmosphere, recalled the chapel royal in Madrid, probably because we were more familiar with that than any other. The Capella Palatina is far handsomer and as different from the Madrid chapel as possible. The walls are entirely covered with fine gold mosaics, the floor with rich marble mosaic, porphyry, serpentine, Africano, cipolino, verde antique, all our favorite marbles, inlaid and enlaced in the most entrancing patterns. “All this marble must have come from the Greek temples and the Roman palaces,” Patsy reminded me.

“Let us enjoy it where it is!”

The beautiful wooden roof covered with Arabic inscriptions is connected with the walls by a stalactite vaulting like the ceilings of the Alhambra. The gold mosaics of the walls recalled the mosaics of Ravenna; this blending of Arabic and Byzantine decorations with Norman architecture is perfectly harmonious; the result is a unique chapel, one of the jewels of Sicily, the treasure house. The good smell of incense, the low voice of a priest in the confessional muttering words of good counsel to a kneeling penitent, made the place warm, alive, part of today.

“That’s either a great swell or a great sinner,” whispered Patsy. “No one else would deserve so much attention from a royal chaplain. I wonder which it is. Not that it matters much. I once asked the verger of Salisbury cathedral if people ever came there to pray. ‘I sometimes catches ’em at it!’ he answered fiercely. That’s the spirit that makes the English cathedrals seem like so many museums! This chapel has something of the same defect; that swell or sinner just saves it!”

In Palermo we felt the influence of the Arab everywhere, in the streets as well as in churches and palaces. The gravity of the people, their stern flashing eyes, something in their bearing as if they were never without a sense of what is due them, recalls not only the Arab, but the Spaniard who has been so much influenced by him. The women of the lower class have the same magnificent black hair as the Syracusans. Few of them wear hats; there is some picturesque dressing, but the bright handkerchiefs worn over the head, and the pretty lace aprons, are the last trace of the native costume that has practically disappeared from the city. We saw few beggars. If we asked our way we were always answered with politeness, ceremony even.

In a shop where we went to buy gloves we found the same indifference of the seller to the buyer that we noticed in Madrid—a take-it-or-leave-it spirit—not encouraging to trade.

“These gloves are rather light for traveling,” I said. “Show me some darker ones.”

“They may soil,” said the dealer truculently; “they will never wear out.”

“Are they of Sicilian make?”

“They were made in this shop.”

The gloves proved all their maker claimed; indeed they still survive.

“That standoffishness is, I suppose, the result of Sicilian omertà!” said Patsy. “I like these people, though I don’t understand them; you miss that jolly flash of sympathy the Italian gives you. They’re very different—Sicilians; they’re not quite Italian, I think!”

We walked in the Corso every afternoon at the fashionable driving hour. Though the weather was mild the smart people all drove in closed carriages, sometimes with one window partly open as they do in Madrid. The carriages were mostly of an antiquated shape much to our liking; a sort of cross between a landau and a barouche; the coachmen all wore caps. The finest turnout we saw had blue and red wheels; the lining and liveries were brown, and coachman and footman wore caps to match with a gold crown embroidered over the visors. We were standing at the Quattro Canti, the bull’s-eye of Palermo, where the Corso and the Via Macqueda cross, when this carriage passed.

“Some one’s bowing to you!” Patsy exclaimed.

I caught a flash of spectacles from the dark interior, the flourish of a hat, nothing more.

“That,” cried Patsy, “was the father of Teodoro. I told you they were great chiefs!”

 

We went to Monreale by an electric tram; it cost ten cents to go (the distance is only five miles) and eight to return. On account, Patsy “supposed,” of Monreale standing on a high hill, and the fact that it takes more electricity to pull the car up than to let it down. The country people in the car were coldly polite to us but they argued sharply among themselves. As we passed the old city wall we noticed the washing hung out to dry. All the way to Monreale there was the same frank display of linen and underclothes. The sheets and table linen, even outside the poorer houses, were extremely handsome, often trimmed with beautiful lace. Before going into the cathedral we loitered about the little town of Monreale.

“May the lady sit here and rest a moment?” Patsy asked a tailor sewing in the doorway of his shop.

The man gravely motioned me to a chair, then asked a question.

“The Signorino is Americano? Has he ever seen Kicago?” Patsy said he knew Chicago well.

“I am thinking of going there,” said the tailor. “I have a good little business, nothing to complain of, all the best people in Monreale wear my clothes, but there is no great future, no prospect of laying anything by. My neighbor, Ludovico, has been in Kicago twenty years; he has done very well. He has merely come back here to wait till his poor father dies—the old man’s past praying for—then he

returns to Kicago. He asks me to go with him. What does the Signorino advise?”

Over a barber’s shop hung a sign with the words “Tonsorial Artist;” this evidently was the establishment of Ludovico.

Below lay the Golden Shell. As he sat at his door, the tailor could see Palermo with its domes and turrets, Monte Pellegrino, a vast blue mountain rising from the bay on one side, Monte Catalfano on the other. Behind him rose an amphitheatre of aerial blue mountains; close at hand towered the grand cathedral of Monreale, that pilgrims cross the world to visit.

“It depends,” Patsy for once spoke with hesitation, all his cocksureness gone. “Chicago is a fine city, great opportunities there, but the climate’s not just what you’re used to here; there are no mountains, no sea.”

“The matter of climate is important,” said the tailor; he waxed his thread, doubled it and began to sew a button on the coat he was making.

“As to mountains, what matters it? One cannot eat them! I have ten children—not an easy thing to fill so many mouths; they eat and they eat. I do not wish to die in the albergo dei poveri! Ludovico is rich! He has two stores in Kicago. When he was a boy his father could only earn ten soldi a day; his poor mother could not always give her children polenta; they must often dine on dandelions and herbs of that sort! Now, when his parents are old, Ludovico takes good care of them. His father wrote that he was dying; Ludovico came back to Monreale; that was two years ago—the old man is still alive. The brother of Ludovico has a fruit store in Kicago; he takes care of the business, sends him the rent of the shops,—two hundred scudi a month. I have seen the money!”

I hurried Patsy away at this point; he was becoming too much interested in the tailor’s affairs; in another minute he would be writing letters of introduction to Chicago magnates.

In the sunny space outside the barber’s door sat a silver haired patriarch wrapped in a shawl—Ludovico’s father.

“The old gaffers wear shawls here,” said Patsy, “as they do in Patras. These folk seem more like Greeks than Italians; a trifle grouty, but with a certain fibre, something bold yet reserved, that makes you want to know them better.”

“Spend the day gossiping with tailors and barbers if you like; I’m for the cathedral.” I flung off towards the church; Patsy followed slowly. It is the only way to take him when he’s in that little-friend-of-all-the-world mood.

The cathedral of Monreale, and the adjacent cloister of the old Benedictine monastery are the crowning glory of that city of wonders, Palermo.

The Capella Palatina, the cathedral of Palermo, the Martorano and the other churches of the city proper hardly prepare one for the magnificence of this gorgeous church that stands, glowing with the golden stain of time, on a hill between the Conca d’Oro and its enfolding mountains. It is the work of Saracen architects, who built for Norman Kings and Christian prelates, with Byzantine, Italian, Greek, Arab, and Norman artists and workmen to help them! The result, instead of being an architectural Babel, is the world’s most truly cosmopolitan cathedral, one of the most stupendous and glorious of existing sanctuaries. The cathedral is in the shape of a Latin cross with three apses. The façade is flanked by two square towers, handsome and imposing enough; the great beauty of the exterior, however, is the outside of the choir, at the back of the church. The lovely pattern of inlaid lava stone in two colors is the fullest, most splendid expression of this style of decoration we first saw on the façades of the palaces at Taormina.

The interior—it is a place to pass hours, days, alone. Here set ajar the door of your soul, let the wind of the ages blow through, as you have done in the Parthenon at Athens, or the great Egyptian temple of Karnak. Drink from the cup of beauty, bathe in the well of light and glory, so shall an echo of that thrill of passionate love for their art that moved the artists who wrought this gemmed casket of delight vibrate through your inmost being.

Every inch of wall space is covered by gold Byzantine mosaics with jewelled pictures representing the whole of Christian history. You may read here as in a book the great scenes from the Old Testament, the story of the life and passion of the Saviour, the history of the Virgin, and of the Apostles. The central figure that dominates the whole cathedral, that you

must look at first on entering and last on leaving, is the majestic half-length figure of Christ, over the high altar. The right hand is raised in the act of blessing; the left holds an open book, with the words in Greek and Latin: “I am the Light of the World.”

The face is severe in expression and very Oriental in type; it is the face of the judge rather than the Saviour of mankind, with nothing of that super-sweetness introduced by the Italian artists of the Renaissance who produced what we now call the Christ-like type.

In my diary for this day I find three words: “Monreale; past belief!”

Later visits made us familiar with the wonderful massively built church inlaid with Oriental stones, fretted with Oriental carving. We each found our favorite pictures in the three different series of mosaics blazing on the walls—“An open book of history, theology, and ethics for all men to read.”

For me the quaint Old Testament scenes are the most interesting. Dearest of all, the story of Noah, the first character in sacred history with whom I became acquainted. The naïve simplicity with which the story is told recalls the Noah’s ark dramas of the nursery, with the dear familiar figures of Noah, Ham, Shem, Japhet, their wives, their animals, their round green trees made of a shaving and looking like Italian stone pines. The very smell of those freshly painted animals, the taste of a certain yellow camel came back to me in the cathedral of Monreale in one lightning flash of memory. Here they are, the dear companions of childhood, the consolers of long rainy days, when the children in the nursery knew exactly how the people in the ark felt on the fortieth day of the deluge. The building of the ark is a most spirited mosaic picture; so is the taking on board of the animals. Noah walks with a horse on one side and a lion, smaller than himself, on the other. The scene when the dove is first let loose is very fascinating; you feel the crowding and fatigue of the too large family party in the ark. In the scene where the dove returns with the olive branch, the sea is depicted in delightful hummocky waves. Two swimmers, apparently sinners, are struggling in the water; on the shoulder of one perches a crow, evidently about to peck out the sinner’s eyes. The scene of the landing on Mt. Ararat is supremely spirited; the gesture of relief with which Noah lets the lion go is masterly.

Patsy’s favorite scene is Rebecca giving the camels of Abraham water from the well. One of the most haunting pictures is the expulsion from the Garden of Eden of our first parents, dressed in sheepskin. The cherubim here is lovely, and the vigorous angel driving the unhappy pair forth with a flaming sword, terrifying.

The death of the Virgin is one of the most primitive and touching of the whole series. The body of the Virgin lies on a couch surrounded by the Apostles; Peter leans over her listening to her heart—this simple human touch makes the whole scene vivid and alive, in spite of its extreme primitiveness. Beside the bed stands Christ, with Mary’s new fledged soul dressed in swaddling bands like a new born infant in his hands. As she received Him into this world, so He receives her into the next. As this picture is part of the story of the Virgin, she is made the most prominent figure. The figure of the Son is much smaller than that of his dead mother on the couch.

In the cloister of Monreale we were again possessed by haunting memories of Spain. The place is like some supremely beautiful Andalusian patio. It is surrounded by slender Arabic paired columns, some with twisted shafts, some inlaid, some of plain alabaster with amazing fretted capitals, the heads of men and animals carved in the midst of the foliage of acanthus and palm. The center is cunningly laid out by some wise gardener, monk or layman. At each corner is a mass of yellow wall-flowers with alternate clumps of white stocks, purple flags, and lavender hyacinths. Among the ornamental trees we found one new to us—the flowering peach. The blossoms are shaped like a red camellia, with softer, more gracious petals.

“The peaches?” Patsy asked the guardiano.

“Small and not at all good to eat,” he made a face; “sour in fact as unripe grapes. You see that other tree, with the insignificant blossoms? That bears peaches fit for the King!”

“Look at these violets!” Patsy brought me the largest Parma violets I ever saw. “This fellow says they begin to bloom in November. Here they are still going it for all they’re worth in April. One of those chaps in Taormina gave

as the reason he had chosen Sicily as a home, that the violets bloom longer here than any place he had ever known.”

Overhead the sky was a flawless sapphire vault, broken only in one corner by a mountain that looked like transparent amethyst. The perfume of the orange and the lemon blossoms was intoxicating as sweet wine; the comfortable hum of bees made a low undersong to the music of the magic fountain in the corner of the cloister. It is not Italian, it is not Sicilian. What manner of fountain can it be? Listen! Its language is softer than any now spoken in Trinacria!

“Allah il Allah!” The fountain still murmurs the old cry of the muezzin.

From a large basin rises a high carved shaft of rich topaz colored marble, supporting a curiously wrought ball with sculptured figures, foliage, and the alternate heads of men and lions. From their mouths drips and drips, but never spurts, a slow soft shower of diamond drops. It is as different from the noisy splurging fountains of Naples, as the slow soft-spoken tongue of the Arabian sage is different from the strident scolding of those men on the train, the father of Teodoro and the little avvocato.

“A place of mystery and beauty beyond belief.”

So the record of Monreale ends as it began—“past belief!”

 

“It’s good enough just to be alive today,” Patsy declared one ecstatic morning; “I’m off for the market and the Marina!”

To reach the Piazza Caraccioli, the market-place, we threaded a maze of narrow dark alleys full of Rembrandtesque lights and shadows. In the very heart of this labyrinth stands an old macaroni mill.

“We may enter and see the works?”

“Benvenuto!” The voice was less welcoming than the word. “They don’t make macaroni where the Signorino comes from?”

“Not like yours!” Patsy magicked the peevish proprietor into good humor, and we were free to enter the dark cavern. Two half naked fellows stood at a deep trough kneading flour and water to a paste. A pair of barefoot men, harnessed to a heavy wooden pole that turned a press, trod their weary round. The paste was put into this press, and came out in long strips. A fifth youth cut the strips into the proper lengths and hung them to dry over bamboo canes.

“These might be the serfs of Roger the Norman making pasta for his army,” said Patsy; “it’s positively mediæval!”

The rude interior was like an ancient cave,—floor, walls, ceiling were all of stone; the men worked in a dull heavy-hearted way that hurt you. There was none of the joyous thrill of labor lightly carried; it was a grievous place.

“The pasta made in America is villainous; I have eaten it,” said the capo. “It is made of wheat flour; bah! Semolina is the only flour fit to make macaroni for Christians.”

“Un bicchiere di vino,” Patsy gave the money to the elder of the men harnessed to that heavy pole. The fellow threw back his beautiful plume of hair out of his gray-blue eyes and thanked Patsy awkwardly.

“Grazie, beviamo a vostro salute.”

The second-hand boot-store next door was a much gayer place than the mill.

“What can I sell you?” said the jolly proprietor, evidently the buffo of the quarter. “Riding-boots good as new? Fishermans’ boots? They will keep you dry to the knee!”

The riding-boots at once dainty and sportsman like, looked extraordinarily like Teodoro’s; the heavy hobnailed fisherman’s boots leaned fraternally against them.

“I do not buy today,” laughed Patsy; “perhaps I may sell tomorrow.”

“I will give you better prices than any man in Palermo!”

Where the market-place broadens to its widest, stands a friggetoria.

On its marble counter lay a vast copper basin of crisp fried fish that looked like whitebait.

“What does the Signorino desire?” asked the fishwife, a tall woman with a superb coiffure and piercing black Saracen eyes. “Scoponi? that is good to make zuppa alla marinaia, calamaretti, gamberi?”

“Which is the scoponi?”

She picked up a big, very handsome blood-red fish, and held it out to Patsy to show how fresh it was.

Leaving him to deal with the fishwife I passed on to the fruit stall.

It was a bad season, the fruttaiuola said. Here were precious mandarins and oranges; she held one up.

“Behold; you can see the blood through the skin; they are all like this.” She showed an orange cut in half, the pulp ruby as a pomegranate. “Oh, the blood oranges of Palermo are famous, they bring a great price at Naples.”

I bought a basket like a net; my fruttaiuola filled it with citrons, lemons, oranges,—adding one of those rare winter melons Teodoro had recommended. From the market we made our way to the Marina, a beautiful curving avenue with fine palaces and gardens fronting the sea.

“The Marina at Messina once looked like this,” sighed Patsy.

Beyond the fashionable Marina we came upon a little fishing village. We peeped into one poor hut; it was filled with fisherman’s tools, fishing reels, lobster pots, old nets, broken oars. On the sunny outer wall hung a tiny crate filled with orange parings.

“Every scrap of lemon, orange, or mandarin skin is saved, dried in the sun, and sold to make candied peel or mandarin liqueur,” Patsy pointed out. “Teodoro’s father was right. The Sicilian really is economical. Palermo could live on what spendthrift New York throws away!”

The nets were spread on the sand to dry; the first catch of the day had been made; two old fishermen were busy weighing the silver fish from the boat drawn up on the beach. We watched a barchetta come in; she danced prettily over the water, curtseying to the craft home before her. On her prow was painted a picture of the Madonna; the big brown sail had a red cross for luck.

“Spugni! spugni di Trapani!” A gobbo with a crate of sponges stopped to show us his wares.

“Sponges of Trapani!” cried Patsy; “why that Trapani is Drapana, where the old Anchises died, where pious Aeneas founded the games in his memory. As we can’t get to Trapani, let’s have one of its sponges!”

He laid in a supply, not yet exhausted. How precious now is every little thing from Sicily—even the outworn gloves, even the fine pear-shaped sponge from Trapani.

“Have you noticed the street shrines?” Patsy pointed to a majolica medallion of Santa Rosalià let into the wall of a house. Two lighted candles and a mass of fresh violets stood before it.

“I have not seen one neglected shrine in all Palermo; they are better kept than in any Italian city I know; we might be in Bavaria.”

The busy gay streets of Palermo are filled with familiar names and escutcheons. Under a fine stone stemma bearing the arms of Charles the Fifth (the Pillars of Hercules and the enlacing scroll) appear the magic names of Edison and Singer.

During those first happy days at Palermo, we forgot (or pretended to) the one absorbing preoccupation of the last three months; behaved, Patsy said, as if there had never been an earthquake; inevitably we were brought back to it as children after a holiday must return to school. At the Quattro Canti we met two sandwich men parading the streets with flaming signs on their backs.

“Seconda gita a Messina, 8 francs!”

Luckless Messina! For eight francs the Palermitans can make a trip to see the wreck of the proud city once Palermo’s rival!

“Poor devils—to be made a spectacle of!” sighed Patsy. “Still it helps to have anybody make money! The railroad will get something out of these special trips; any movement is better than none.”

Outside a large dry-goods shop an immense placard called our attention.

“Bazar Messinesi. Bankrupt stock from Messina, to be sold out below cost.”

In the Via Marquada, a fine bustling modern street, I found my friend Palladia the milliner. She welcomed me cordially though I saw she looked ill and care-worn.

When the serious business of choosing straw, shape, and flowers for a new hat was over, we spoke of other things.

“How are thy affairs going, Palladia?”

“Badly, Signora. It is a dreadful season. No one buys anything new. See that mass of old hats my customers have brought me to make over! It is a miracle the Signora should come today; she can perhaps help me? I have had an idea. The ladies of Taormina have always served themselves at Messina (there is no serious milliner at Taormina). Now that the milliners of Messina are no more,—how if I went to Taormina with hats for Easter? Mostly mourning hats of course—but a little lighter, via, second mourning for the young ladies at least!”

“What a good notion!”

“If the Signora would give me two lines to one who might assist me?”

Introductions were written on the spot. Palladia, the valorous, had come from Rome to Palermo, a stranger, with only her old mother to help her, had set up her shop, and so far had “made good.” Surely she deserved what help an old customer could afford her!

Next day Patsy, insatiate sightseer, went off to Segesta and Selinus. Left alone I hunted up our friends Dr. Parlato Hopkins and his wife. Thanks to them I was translated from a lone traveler’s solitude to a cordial circle of old and new friends. It all began with the tea-party in the doctor’s study, where I met Mrs. Bishop, the wife of our Consul (an old friend), and Canon and Mrs. Skeggs of the English Church.

“What a tempting cake!” one of the party exclaimed, as we drew up to the table.

“I hope it’s good as it looks;” said Mrs. Parlato Hopkins; “for I made it.”

“Did I help?” asked the doctor. “Could you have baked that cake if I had not made the baking powder?”

Voted that it was “both of their cake,” and that the Canon should cut it. He began by “counting noses.”

“You’re too extravagant,” his wife exclaimed as the Canon cut the first slice. His triumph came when every one of us asked for a second piece.

“A little marmalade?” urged the doctor; “home-made also. My wife is a good housewife in spite of being a good doctor.”

“I can recommend that marmalade,” said the Canon’s wife; “the oranges came from our garden.”

While at table we spoke of joyous things; as the afternoon passed, the talk waxed serious, laughter ceased, faces grew earnest, voices grave. This little group of friends, exiles all, living in Palermo, bound together by a thousand kindnesses, had passed through deep waters. The faithful almoners of England and America, they too had worked early and late for the profughi. Here, as at Messina, and Syracuse, the most precious contribution was the moral, not the material aid. Order, discipline, in that welter of chaos were worth more than money or stores.

“These poor souls will not go to work while they are being fed, housed, and clothed by charity,” said the Canon. “When they ask me for work I am in a quandary. The working people of Palermo are all against them—naturally; there isn’t enough work to go around!” Exactly what Ignazio had said.

“Why not colonize?” I proposed. “England would do that. There must be parts of Italy where prosperous colonies might be founded. I myself have seen practically deserted villages both in the Abruzzi mountains and in the Sorrentine peninsula, where whole populations have emigrated to the Argentine Republic or to the United States.”

“This is not England!” sighed the Canon.

I said to Mrs. Bishop how much I wished to see her husband.

“Another day,” she answered. “He is still very busy with the Petrosino murder.”

“Petrosino!” Another tragedy—as if Sicily had not had enough that dreadful year. From one source and another I learned the story of the murder.

Lieutenant Giuseppe Petrosino, a detective of the New York police force, came to Palermo to look up the records of some criminals. A curious law, made in the humane intention of helping reform criminals, is in force in Italy. By this statute, passed in 1902, a discharged criminal, after a certain number of years of good behavior, is given certain papers by the authorities by which it is made to appear that there has never been a criminal charge against him. With this clean bill of health, he is given another chance to start life over again in a new country. At the same time a careful secret record of his case is kept by the authorities.

In the United States we have a law that forbids the emigration into our country of all criminals, except so called “political” criminals.

The equitable adjustment of the two conflicting statutes has been, and I believe is still, the subject of grave consideration by both Governments.

Meanwhile, when it became necessary for our police to gain knowledge of certain secret criminal records, a request was made of the Italian police for copies of them. The Italian authorities, on demand, furnished the American authorities with these copies. So far, so good. There came a time when some mysterious influence was felt to be at work, due to the agency of the Mafia, a secret society affiliated with the Camorra, whose members exist in every class of society. It somehow became known that copies of the secret records were being called for, and supplied from various communities all over Sicily. The wheels of justice became clogged; it was to help set them in motion that Petrosino, with the approval of the Italian police, came to Palermo.

Two years before, Petrosino had arrested Erricone, the Chief of the Camorra in New York, and handed the arch criminal over to the Carabinieri, the royal police force of Italy. From that day every Cammorista in the world knew that the Camorra had condemned Petrosino to death. How was it that Petrosino did not know it? That is the most puzzling phase of the whole affair. Probably the man was too much absorbed in his work to think about himself at all. He went about Sicily, where a price was set on his head, unarmed and unafraid.

He registered at his hotel under an assumed name; otherwise he took few precautions to conceal his identity. His mail came to the general post-office addressed to his real name. He was careless in a hundred ways about preserving his incognito. Petrosino was a perfectly fearless man, though he was often warned; from the first he exposed himself recklessly. One night on his way home from the Caffè Orete, he was surprised, set upon from behind, and shot to death in the back.

No one saw the murder; no one could even guess who the murderers were.

“It would have been the same,” it was said, “if the murder had taken place at high noon at the Quattro Canti, instead of nine o’clock at night in the empty Piazza Marina; no one would have seen the murder, no one could have guessed who the murderers were, though the Italian Government offered a large reward.”

They gave Petrosino a great funeral, with military honors at the expense of the State. The hearse was draped by the American flag and covered with beautiful wreaths from the city, the province, the police and the Department of Justice. Our Consul walked behind it as the first mourner with Doctor Parlato Hopkins at his side. The procession passed the Consulate, where Canon and Mrs. Skeggs bore Mrs. Bishop company through the trying hours.

The streets and balconies were packed with people, a silent unsympathetic crowd. There was no disorder. The Mafia made no sign. Its work was done, the man was dead; let them give him all the honors they cared to pay for. The feeling expressed by those thousands of silent spectators was indifference. There were many who would not uncover as the coffin passed.

“He was a spy; he got what he deserved!” said the faces of the silent Palermitans,—grave, sinewy, fierce-eyed men, dark as Arabs.

 

“Petrosino must have been a very uncommon man, from all you tell me,” I said; “what did he look like?”

“He was a fine man,” one of the company answered, “so handsome, so remarkable looking. He had a Napoleonic head.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “he had indeed.”

“But you never saw him!”

A queer look came into the doctor’s eyes; he did not answer.

“Where could you have seen him?”

“I never saw him alive,” said the doctor, “you forget, I embalmed Petrosino.”

One of the newspapers had a caricature by Piff Paff of the Prefect of Palermo with his arm about Mr. Bishop, pointing to a long line of criminals.

“Here they are, caro mio, take your choice of them;” says the Prefect. The paper was quickly suppressed. I tried in vain to buy a copy.

None of my friends in Palermo by the way had seen or heard of the profane poem supposed to have been printed in a Messina newspaper, calling upon the Saviour to prove He could work miracles by sending a good earthquake. Mr. Bishop never heard the story till he went to Rome. I asked many people about this; no one had seen it, no one could give the name of the newspaper in which it was printed.

Agnese and Napoleone both had assured me that the earthquake was sent as a punishment for the poem. According to Agnese it was written by an anarchist; Napoleone held that it was by a free mason. I have come to the conclusion that the whole matter is an entire invention.

At our hotel I made the acquaintance of a lady whose name I never learned. When I spoke of our Consul she told me what admirable service he had rendered.

“It was Mr. Bishop’s idea to set the profughi in the different ricoveri to work,” she said. “At first all the rest of the Committee were opposed to it. He tried first one, then another; at last he found a priest, an admirable man, who backed him. I don’t know what they would have done without him.”

How Griscom’s slogan “We help these people to help themselves!” rings out. I heard its echo in Palermo, Syracuse, Messina, wherever one of his staff has been.

Mr. Bishop spoke with the greatest cordiality of the Palermitan Committee. “They have done fine work,” he said. He mentioned the wife of General Mazza as one of the most earnest of the leaders.

There were still 7,000 profughi in Palermo at this time. I went with Canon Skeggs and Dr. Parlato to visit one of the largest ricoveri. It was admirably arranged in a big garden surrounded on three sides by an arcade like a wide cloister. This had been boarded in, and divided off into neat little dwellings where the refugees lived in families. They all had good beds and were fairly well clothed. The Canon had a word for every one.

To this man he promised employment, to that he gave news of a lost daughter separated from the rest of the family and traced to a ricovero in Syracuse. In one room I talked with an elderly woman and her unmarried daughter, a pretty creature who said she was thirteen and looked it; her mother claimed that she was sixteen. She was very calm looking, said she felt perfectly well, but that she was to go to the lying-in hospital the next day. Poor child, her lover was killed at Reggio.

I talked with an old woman who had lost every member of her family.

“Sono troppo impressionata!” she cried, “tremo sempre!”

She showed a tiny empty snuff-box.

“I have not a soldo to buy snuff!”

“Here are two soldi,” said Dr. Parlato, “cheer up, mother, we will find some of your people yet; you promised you would not cry, if I kept you in snuff!”

A brave smart looking woman sewing on a Singer sewing machine told us proudly that she was paid for her work by the day; the others were so lazy they were paid by the piece.

The Director, an able excellent man, told us his profughi were now earning money by making clothes for the prisons, but that the future of the poor people under his charge was a grave problem. The central committee had agreed to send him 300,000 lire more. “After that, there will be no more! What will become of them?”

I talked with a shop-keeper of Messina, one of the few profughi I met who wished to go back.

“So you wish to return to Messina?”

“Why not? It is the mother land; I cannot live in any other. I am not so fortunate as some; after three months I am still idle, who would so gladly work. If the money subscribed were given out pro rata, so much a head, say one thousand francs apiece, a family of five, like mine, by putting their money together could have a little capital to begin with. The Government makes a mistake to spend so much money in building houses; it was not given with that scope, but to feed, clothe, and start again in life such of us unfortunates as escaped! If I were the Prefetto I would call in some great firm from England, America, Russia, and make a contract with them to excavate Messina. If it were let out to some great contractors, responsible people who could bring the machinery necessary, Messina might be excavated in six months, or at most in a year!”

How easy it is to criticize, how hard it is to do!

My last morning in Palermo was spent at the Canon’s house. The parsonage is close by the charming Gothic church, largely maintained by the Whittakers, an English family long resident in Palermo. The parsonage had been turned into a store-house.

“I have very little left now,” said Mrs. Skeggs. “Here are some nice woolen skirts from England. A friend who owns a large woolen mill gave the flannel, the mill operatives, women who had worked all day, put in extra time, sat up at night to make these garments for us! We have had some American contributions too from Rome. Such good stuff in all the clothes they sent. And their admirable little work-bags, each holding good scissors, thimble, needles, thread, buttons, hooks and eyes. I have only one left.”

I asked if she had succeeded in getting employment for her refugees. She could find plenty of good situations for the young women as servants among responsible people, but the girls’ parents would not let them take positions for fear of their coming to harm.

The parsonage hall was full of profughi. One had come for a bed, one for a blanket, one for a dress. The Canon had promised to show me the church. As he led the way there, his wife came after him to ask a last question.

“May I give Ginocchio a small bed?”

“What has he had?” asked the Canon.

“Oh, a great deal; but he has nine children, and they only have two beds between them all.”

“Then let him have it!”

The good earnest face of the Canon’s wife, frowning slightly with perplexity, looking out of the parsonage door, as the Canon and I hurried off through the pretty garden to the English church, is the last picture of Palermo that remains! The garden was full of English flowers, blooming luxuriantly side by side with those famous orange trees whose blossoms perfumed the air.

Tuesday, the sixth of April, six weeks after work began at the American camp, the German East African steamer “Admiral,” having on board Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Griscom and Captain Belknap, entered the harbor of Messina. More than a month before, on the fourth of March, Mr. Roosevelt’s term of office as President of the United States came to an end. The last months of a retiring president are always arduous, and Mr. Roosevelt must have found them peculiarly so. Besides the endless knotting up of the ordinary executive business, there was all the extra labor connected with the Italian Relief. Now he was off for a holiday in the African jungle. On his way, he looked in at Messina, to see how things were going on at the Camp. Work had been pushed at the Mosella, at Reggio, Sbarre, Palmi, Ali, all along the line; the rumor that Mr. Roosevelt was coming spurred every man to his best pace.

“We must have something worth while to show him!” said Belknap.

“All right!” the Camp answered as one man. The very hammers sang it, the saws shrieked it, the true hearts beat the gay refrain: “All right!”

As the “Admiral” passed the Faro, Belknap, who had joined the party at Naples, pointed out the royal standard flying at the masthead of a man-of-war. “That means the King and Queen are here!” They had timed their visit to Messina so as to meet the ex-President there. As the “Admiral” slowed down, a launch from the King’s ship came alongside, a dapper young officer ran up the gangway and saluted.

“His Majesty was about to go on shore; learning of the steamer’s arrival, he has delayed in the expectation of seeing Mr. Roosevelt on board.”

Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Griscom immediately embarked on the launch and went with the Italian officer to the King’s ship. So at this old “Four Corners” of the earth, Victor Emmanuel and Theodore Roosevelt met. What did they say to each other?

They probably shook hands, they may have talked about the weather, or the price of oranges (sixty cents a dozen in New York at the present writing and a drug in the markets of Sicily). Their meeting is none the less significant because we know nothing about it; the circumstances make it momentous. Though Mr. Roosevelt was no longer in office, in a certain sense, at all events, in the eyes of the Italians, he represented the American people. It was under his administration that the earthquake occurred, that the relief work was planned and started; he himself had given the impetus. Morally, if not technically, this was a meeting of the representatives of the two great allies, Italy and the United States, bound together by the strongest of all alliances, the need of each other’s help.

What would America do without the skill of the Italians? What would Italy do without the gold of the Americans? May neither ever have to stand the test!

The interview over, the King took the ex-President and the Ambassador on shore in his launch. At the landing they parted, King Victor going off with Captain Bignami to the Villaggio Regina Elena, the others starting for the Camp. On their way they passed two of our steamers unloading lumber. Mr. Roosevelt stopped and shook hands with the sailors in charge of the job. No holiday for them! Though little else went on in the way of work that afternoon, the unloading could not be delayed. The nightmare of demurrage, forfeit money paid the ship owners for every day’s delay in unloading the cargo, haunted Belknap, sleeping or waking.

The carriage with the Roosevelt party drove up the Viale San Martino, past the Tell Tale Tower, to the Camp. Though it was raining in torrents, the road was in good condition; the Italians, like the Americans, had been “rushing work.” At the Camp the party was received by Buchanan and Brofferio. The sailors were lined up; the officers, volunteers and carpenters were assembled. There was a great gathering of the clan; from Reggio came Ensign Wilcox, Gerome Brush, Robert Hale and the head carpenter. From Taormina came Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Wood. Mr. Chanler was with the Roosevelt party, together with Avvocato Giordano who had been on the “Bayern,” Commendatore Salvatore Cortesi of the Italian Associated Press, Mr. Lloyd Derby, and Mr. Robert Bacon, Jr.

The visitors walked through Viale Taft, Viale Roosevelt and Viale Stati Uniti (the streets in the American Village are all named for men who had some part in building it). Mr. Roosevelt was keen to see every detail: the ice house, the kitchen, the neat offices, the comfortable bedrooms, and finally the “mess-room,” gay with bunting. Gasperone had set the tables with fresh linen, and decorated them with wild hyacinths and acanthus. Such hospitality as the Camp could afford was offered. The cook had baked a cake; Mr. Buchanan’s “boy,” the giant negro from Florida, had prepared a vast quantity of sandwiches. Though nobody was hungry, the good cheer must be sampled.

Mr. Roosevelt made a short speech, then, raising his glass, gave the toast:

“To every man of every nation engaged in this great work!”

They drank the toast standing.

“What did he say about every civilized nation owing a debt to Italy?” whispered a reporter to J.

“You’ve got the gist of it,” said J., “and it’s true as Gospel, too!”

All too soon it was time to go! The three hours were up! Down in the harbor the “Admiral” was blowing off steam; this was a non-schedule stop, made out of courtesy to a distinguished passenger; privileged persons must be punctual. The return to the landing was a triumphal progress. During the last year and a half Mr. Roosevelt has had many such, he has heard a deal of cheering. None, it would seem, can have moved him so profoundly as the cheers of the Messinesi, the brave remnant of a brave people!

The letters and diaries of this time ring with the echoes of those shouts.

Some of the visitors were quite unprepared for the magnitude of the work undertaken. They had received the impression that the building party had very little to do, except put together the portable houses (there were only forty-nine of them) that, it was commonly supposed at home, composed the larger part of the cargo of the lumber ships.

“As if,” Belknap exclaimed, “you could pick a portable house from a tree like a lemon!” In a letter to the Ambassador, Belknap gives some interesting details about the hospital.

“The hospital referred to was one that the Queen desired to be built at Villaggio Regina Elena. Like the hotel, it began as a combination of several standard cottages, but, as Mr. Elliott was never content with a makeshift when he could improve upon it, a plan was ultimately evolved which embodied all of her Majesty’s ideas, and at the same time made the most of the ground area that would be available to cover. The Queen had stipulated for kitchen, laundry and servants to be in a building separate from the hospital proper, and for a detached house to be available close at hand. Mr. Elliott’s plan was of a large, main building, forty by sixty feet, containing three wards, dining-room and pantry, bath, office, dispensary, and linen closet, with a wing thrown out on the north containing operating-room, sterilizing-room, and emergency ward, and another wing on the south for doctors’ rooms and bath, and nurses’ rooms and bath. In the rear were to be kitchen, laundry and dining-room, with servants’ sleeping-rooms and storeroom in a semi-detached building in one corner, and, symmetrically placed in the opposite corner, a small isolated building for a contagious ward. With the hospital, also, our part was at first limited to the contractor work, her Majesty sending an engineer down to arrange for plumbing, drainage, lighting and furnishing; but later we arranged for, and carried through, the plastering and tiled flooring.

“In submitting the two floor plans of the hotel, it is requested that the Ambassador take such steps as may be necessary for obtaining her Majesty’s sanction for the use of her name for the hotel.

“It is only intended to build a two-story structure, having about eighty-four rooms available for guests, and a dining-room and its accessories amply large for about two hundred at one time.

“Since we have been at work about the hotel site, several persons have approached me about undertaking to manage the hotel when completed. My reply has been that I should refer all such questions to the Ambassador, as I did not feel myself in a position to decide any matter not connected strictly with the construction. The interest in the hotel is spreading.”

The sixth of April was a red-letter day. In the morning the King came to the Camp; in the afternoon Mr. Roosevelt and the Ambassador made their long expected visit, and in the evening J. was summoned on board the Italian man-of-war, to show his plans of the hospital to the Queen.

The day after Mr. Roosevelt’s visit the Camp was astir early. The Ambassador breakfasted with the officers and master carpenters in the mess-room; in spite of the pouring rain, he was off before eight o’clock with Belknap on a tour of inspection. He was delighted with everything, had a good word for everybody. More than twelve hundred men were now employed at Messina, Reggio, Sbarre and the smaller places, where our Lilliputian “wooden palaces” were going up. The Ambassador, who had kept in touch with every step of the work, now saw it “in full swing,” saw the working of the system, the organization of the army of labor. There were corps for clearing the ground, stacking the lumber, delivering the building materials, and for cleaning up. There were interpreters, mostly Sicilians, who had been in America, carters and water-boys. The Sicilian and Calabrian carpenters all served an apprenticeship in the “shop.” Here under the keen eye of Phillips, the carpenter in charge, each man was tested, and then taught to do one thing,—whatever he proved fittest for. To build one hundred houses a week was Belknap’s ambition; sometimes he fell short, oftener he exceeded the number. This is the way the thing was done:

First on the ground came Cook—ship’s carpenter from the “Celtic,” a Boston man—with his gang. They cleared the land (the peasants had already cut down the lemon trees), smoothed and leveled the soil, drove the foundation posts, laid the sills.

Second, came Emerson, the Philadelphian, and his gang of framers. They put up the side studs, the roof frame, the gable ends (made in the shop), and laid the floor joists.

Third, came Cox of Brooklyn with his gang. They placed the end studs, the door and window frames, their “cripples,” and the kitchen framing. When the work of these two framing gangs was done, they passed on, leaving a skeleton house behind them.

Now came one of the four enclosing gangs, organized by Neil Mackay, a canny Scot, king of carpenters they called him. There were fifty men in each enclosing gang, with one of their own number for leader, who was made responsible for the tools. At seven every morning each gang was given its tool-box; a close tally of the contents was kept, and at night the precious tools must be returned intact. The enclosing gang made more of a showing than the others. They took a skeleton house and clothed it with clapboards and floors; so that the roofers—who came next with their Sicilian capo (boss), Ferrara—found something that looked a good deal like a house. After the roofers had put on the roof, the finishers came. They hung the doors, fitted and glazed the windows, put on locks and fastenings, added the steps. When the carpenters were done with the house, the bricklayers and masons took hold and built the famous kitchen, putting in a stovepipe to make all complete, and in their turn making room for the painters. These men gave each cottage two coats of white paint, green doors and trimmings and dark neutral-colored base, “so that the mud splashed up by the rain would not show.”

When Mr. Griscom had seen the different gangs at work, he went to inspect the foundations of the hotel. While he was admiring the neat brick arches, the royal automobile whizzed up to take the Ambassador, Belknap and J. to the Villaggio Regina Elena, to meet the Queen. Having seen and approved the plans for the hospital and houses the Ambassador had promised to build in the American quarter of her model village, she wished to see the site the buildings would occupy.

They found the Queen already there; in spite of the torrential “earthquake rain,” she was determined to see every detail of her village. The Ambassador walked with her and Captain Bignami; the others fell in behind and followed with the lady-in-waiting, Brofferio and the Italian officers.

“This is the bakery!” said the Captain. “This is the baker; he himself built his oven. Your Majesty can see how light the bread is!”

Her Majesty said something kind to the baker, then crossed the street to the butcher’s shop, neat as wax, with all the latest sanitary contrivances; next to the school, then to the church, last of all to the industrial school,—a busy hive of working women and girls.

“The Queen was perfectly delighted,” writes

J. “The place fairly hummed with the noise of machinery. Everything was going at full blast; women were making stockings and weaving underclothes; there must have been twenty of them at least stitching on Singer sewing-machines (the Singer people, by the way, sent a good subscription). The Queen went into several of the houses, and found them all in apple-pie order; Captain Bignami insists on perfect cleanliness.”

As they left the building a little girl, escaping from the guards who kept the people back from pressing too closely on the royal party, threw herself at the Queen’s feet and kissed the hem of her dress. Many petitions were made, some of them for perfectly unreasonable things.

“It is so hard,” said the Queen; “these poor people think I can give them whatever they ask me for.”

“That is not wonderful, considering all that your Majesty has given them.”

“The hospital will stand here;” Captain Bignami pointed out the site on the hillside above the village, commanding a magnificent view.

“You have heard,” it was whispered, “her Majesty names it the Elizabeth Griscom Hospital?”

“What a good idea!”

The Queen now disappeared, and the Americans returned to Messina. The Ambassador soon after took the ferry-boat for Reggio. Here he looked over the work with Ensign Wilcox, and later went with Mr. Chanler to Sbarre, to see the buildings put up there under Chanler’s direction. Timothy, the carpenter, writing to his wife, says:

“The Ambassador, Captain Belknap and several other gentlemen came. My men was working, though the mud was ears deep and one could not keep looking well. The Captain introduced me to Mr. Griscom, who highly commended me on the mill and its workings. They all took dinner with us that evening, and we was twelve at table. When we got good and started and was about half-way through, Mr. Chanler came in late and made thirteen. He did not mind. Some of the boys kicked but we laughed them out of it. Many funny stories was told. Finally broke up, singing America on the party’s leaving; it was raining very hard.”

“I had hoped,” writes Belknap, “that Mr. Roosevelt might see what was to me the best feature of the whole enterprise, the hundreds of men busily employed, earning good wages, making the air ring with the noise of their saws and hammers; but it would have been futile to try and keep the men at their places while he was passing. The men were in sight, to be sure, by the hundreds, fresh from their work, with tools in hand, nail aprons on. I doubt if much work was done the whole afternoon, notwithstanding that Mr. Roosevelt was in the Camp only an hour; yet the time lost was more than made up afterwards by the enthusiasm and stimulus that the visit gave.”

So ended the meeting of the Triumvirs, Roosevelt, Griscom and Belknap. To those who helped them in their work it was of such profound interest, that the sixth of April remains the culminating point of the whole Messina business.

What did it mean to them?

All three are men of action, who delight too much in doing to waste much time in talking about what they have done. They felt it none the less for all that. A single sentence from a letter of Mr. Griscom’s tells us more than a volume of official reports.

“I may say personally, I have had the most valuable and interesting experience of my lifetime.”

We said at the time that the rain was the only drawback to the complete success of Mr. Roosevelt’s visit. Looking back at that memorable sixth of April, we are not so sure of this. Was it not really best things happened as they did? All the distinguished visitors received a more exact idea of the actual conditions under which the work they planned was carried out, than if the day had been fair. For more than three months that cruel earthquake rain continued, with only a few rare days of fair weather. The peculiar rain may in some measure have been due to the fine dust discharged into the atmosphere, since every drop of rain is formed around such a particle. This may, the scientists say, account for the rain at Messina. Peculiar rains have been observed after other earthquakes. The trouble is that earthquakes are so rare that the scientists cannot tell whether the rain was a mere coincidence or due in some measure to the disturbance. “The change of the electrical potential due to the earthquake might serve to start a rain, and altogether one is inclined to suspect that the rain was at least started by the earthquake,” writes one expert. The truth is the scientists themselves are all “up a tree” about that mysterious rain. Rosina Calabresi, Timothy, and all the simple people who endured it, have no such doubts. To them, to us, perhaps to Mr. Roosevelt, it remains a rain apart, unlike all others!

“Oggi il Signor è morto.”

“Dead? Impossible, we heard he was better!”

Gasperone smiled patiently, pointed to heaven and repeated the greeting that, in Sicily, people give each other on Good Friday: “Today our Lord is dead.”

I had come to spend Easter at Camp; Gasperone met me at the station. His words brought a faint uneasiness that returned whenever the greeting was repeated: I heard it many times that day—from Caterina, Zenobia, Zia Maddalena, a dozen others—and always it brought that faint shock, as if there was something especially significant to us in the words.

On our way to Camp we met Timothy, the carpenter. I stopped to ask how things were going on.

“Badly!” said Timothy. “Ain’t it a pity? Such a fine day at last after all this rain! It’s a holiday; the men don’t want to work. We’re short of hands all round. I have only fifteen out of my gang of twenty-seven, and they are working under protest.”

“This is a festa?” I asked Gasperone.

“No, not a feast; rather a great fast,” said Gasperone.

“First thing I knew of it’s being Good Friday,” said Timothy, “was the hot cross buns for breakfast—the best bread I have eaten since I left home. You ought to look into the church they rigged up; it’s like a tempor’y railroad station. It certainly is cheerful to see them poor devils hanging round the statuary—touching, too.”

It was well for all concerned that the men refused to work, that the great “drive” was relaxed for a breathing space. They had all been working over time, “on a spurt” to get things as far advanced as possible for the visitors.

Saturday morning I went with Signor Donati and J. to call on the Archbishop at his palace, one of the few habitable buildings in Messina; it had been only slightly damaged by the earthquake. The handsome courtyard was filled with wooden shanties, the lower halls, the very stairs were crowded with families camping out. The palace had become an asylum for the homeless, a storehouse for the treasures saved from cathedral, church and monastery. While waiting for the Archbishop, we were entertained by a Jesuit priest who spoke good English.

“You shall see all our precious things,” he said, “if you will send some more blankets for our poor people and some vulgar shoes.”

The Jesuit, a lean virile man in a shabby cassock, took a big bunch of keys from his belt and led the way to a distant wing of the palace. He unlocked a heavy iron-barred door, motioned us to pass through, and locked the door behind us. We were in a vast room, smelling faintly of stale incense and wax candles, filled with the spoil of churches. There were statues of saints, plaster angels, paintings of the Madonna, crucifixes, fragments of rich altar cloths, embroidered vestments, priceless old laces, gold and silver vessels for the mass, painted missals, candlesticks, lamps, all carefully sorted and laid in piles. We passed through room after room,

filled with this strange wreckage of the churches, to an inner apartment, double locked, a high vaulted chamber where the most precious treasures were kept, the gold and the silver mantas of the Madonna della Lettera. The gold manta is an exquisite piece of goldsmith’s work, beautifully chased and set with gorgeous jewels, most of them royal gifts. We admired an emerald ornament offered by Queen Isabel of Spain (the modern Isabel), who greatly affected emeralds, and a diamond brooch given by Queen Margherita.

“Nothing is missing,” said the Jesuit; “if the soldiers overlooked anything, the people found it and brought it to us—all the jewels of the Madonna della Lettera, even the precious letter itself, are here.”

“The epistle,” Signor Donati explained, “written by the Virgin to the people of Messina, and brought here by Saint Paul, who, as you know, came to Sicily in the year 42.”

The Archbishop received us in his study, a big bare room filled with supplicants, all talking at once. In order that we might hear each other speak, he led the way to a smaller apartment next door. The Archbishop is a tall handsome man, with a direct, forcible manner. We heard from Sicilian friends that he had spent the whole of his large private fortune for the benefit of his people and his church. The Archbishop wasted no time; after thanking us for what had already been done, he spoke of what was nearest his heart.

“Build us a church! That is our first need; then build us a barrack, large enough to house eighteen priests. Out of my one hundred and five, eighty were killed; but first of all the church, that is our greatest need!”

“You shall have your church, be not afraid,” said Signor Donati. “Behold, the Signor architetto has brought his plans to show you!”

J. unrolled the plans with his neat drawings, and spread them out on the writing table, using the ancient sand boxes of the silver inkstand to hold down the corners:

“Notice that the church is to be in the shape of the Red Cross.”

“Admirable!” said the Archbishop. “Be seated.” With a gracious gesture of authority, he motioned J. to a chair, seated himself at the table, and bent over the plans.

Point by point, they went over the ground-plan, elevation, and all the rest of it. The Archbishop was delighted; every ingenious detail pleased him. His earnest, worn face relaxed; he really smiled, waxed enthusiastic. Nothing, he declared, could have been better devised. This was the attitude of the churchmen throughout. Whatever was done for them was well done. The plans for the church were much more elaborate than I had supposed from J.’s letters. Instead of a mere roofed-in shed, it was to be a very solidly built wooden church on concrete foundations; it was even to have a belfry.

“By grouping together the ordinary cottage windows, we have here a rose window!”

“What a good idea!”

“By a miracle, enough red glass has been found in Messina to make a red cross for the centre of the rose window—nothing is lacking, you see, not even a stained glass window.”

“Capital!”

“If we succeed in getting your church built for you, there are two requests we make in return.”

“Requests? Let us hear them.”

“First, that the church be called Santa Croce; this because, if built, it will be by a gift of the American Red Cross.”

“A good name,” the Archbishop nodded; “it shall certainly be called Santa Croce. The second request?”

“The Signor Comandante asks for the use of a bell one of our carpenters saw lying on the ground outside a ruined church.”

“For what will the bell be used?”

“To call the men to work.”

“That is a good use. Laborare est orare. Send your men for the bell when you like.”

The Archbishop rose as he said it, and the interview was over; a busy man, he had given us all the time he could spare. The Jesuit came with us to the door of the palace.

“The Signora will not forget? Vulgar shoes. Some were sent with high heels, pointed toes—no use for us. Vulgar shoes for men and women. It is understood?”

 

Grass was not allowed to grow under the feet at Belknapoli (so Mrs. Griscom christened the Camp); that very afternoon they sent for the bell. It came in a cart, drawn by a pair of swift red oxen, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of Messinesi. With a deal of laughter and shouting, the church bell was hung between two trees outside the “pay-window.” From that day on, it called the men to labor and to rest, morning, noon and night.[2]

On Saturday afternoon Gasperone knocked at my door. “Behold,” he said, “the package from Rome the Signora expected. It seems in good condition.” He laid down a big bundle that had come by post.

We had telegraphed Agnese from Palermo, to send some clothing to the Camp to distribute for Easter. Agnese had been faithful, the post-office prompt, the clothes had come in time. It cost twenty cents to send the telegram, a very small sum to transport the package. In Italy the people own their telegraph and express; they pay the minimum price for both services. When shall we do as much?

The news that there were clothes to be had for the asking spread rapidly; a line formed outside the guest house. The dresses, alas, did not begin to “go round.” With the doctor’s help, we gave them to the most needy, thwarting Gasperone, who wanted them all for his family. At the end of the distribution Caterina arrived, out of breath, leading the raggedest barefoot child in all ragged Messina. Nothing remained for her but a bright blue dress and a buff silk handkerchief.

“It is finished, away, away!” Gasperone drove the grateful, gossiping crowd before him. “The Comandante does not allow loafing about the Camp; be off!”

On Easter morning the Camp slept late; it was to be a real holiday, for the men at least. The matins of the birds began before dawn. At sunrise the world was one great opal; as the sun grew stronger, the opalescent mists disappeared; by the time the goats came rambling to the kitchen door, the earth was an emerald between a sapphire sea and sky. Caterina was the first to give me the lovely Easter greeting:

“Oggi il Signor non è morto!” (Today our Lord is not dead.)

A little girl in a pretty blue dress, a buff handkerchief tied over her rippling bronze hair, shyly held out a lilac lily as she lisped:—“Blessed be thou!”

“Don’t you know her?” cried Caterina. “It’s Teresa; the dress suits her, yes?”

Teresa, the ragged little witch of last night, was transformed into a neat demure child! All that bright beautiful Easter day I kept meeting one and another of the girls and women, who the night before had been so forlorn, so bedraggled. Today they were neat and freshly dressed for Pasqua. How did they do it? In the streets, in the church, wherever you met the women, you felt that effort at festive dress for the great feast of the year, the world-old festival, that from the beginning of time we have celebrated by one name or another.

The services in Messina this Easter Sunday were far more impressive than any I ever saw at Rome or even at Seville. The pontifical mass was said by the Archbishop in a small wooden theatre that had escaped destruction. The congregation was large; there were now forty thousand persons in Messina. Many of the congregation were maimed or crippled. A man with a bandaged right arm at the elevation of the Host struck his breast three times and murmured low, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Poor soul! whatever his sins have been, his sufferings must have matched them! In the afternoon the images of the Saviour and of Mary the Mother were carried in procession through Messina. Cries of “Viva Maria!” followed the figures. A young girl took her earrings from her ears, and one of the bearers climbed up and hung the offering in Mary’s girdle.

“Ah, Santissima Maria!” cried a poor old woman with tear-worn eyes, “you have nothing, not even a drum, to do you honor! Ah! the band that went before you a year ago! The musicians are all dead. I lost my two daughters. They are under the ruins; may I meet them in Paradise! See, this is my husband; he is blind; we two old ones were saved; all the children and the grandchildren were taken.”

As the figure of the Christ passed, the old blind man fell on his knees, stretching out his arms and crying in a terrible voice: “Santissimo padre, help us, help us!”

“This is the first real Sunday we have had at Camp,” said the doctor that evening.

No one was ever obliged, or even asked, to work on Sunday, I think; our men had caught the fever of work, it was the labor microbe that pushed them on. The desolate people, the sad women with their wonderful children, who came from their little wretched huts and looked with longing eyes at the baracche Americane, stirred and stimulated our men to toil through the bitter days of rain, and the dreadful days of wind, when the pestilential dust of the city, that vast charnel house, was driven into the eyes and throat.

Easter Monday was a festa, and the men did not work. Some of the carpenters went for a long bicycle ride. Signor Donati appeared at breakfast in a fine sportsmanlike costume with gaiters, cartridge belt and game bag. We heard him blazing away all day with his gun. He shot one swallow. The tiny scrap of a bird was brought in on a plate at dinner, offered to me, then to the Captain, and finally sent to Brofferio, who was ill in his room.

At the Villaggio Regina Elena there was a pretty ceremony that Easter Monday. On Sunday a poor blind woman, Giuseppa Lo Verde, gave birth to a little girl, the first child born in the Queen’s village. The child was baptized the next day and given the name of Elena. The ceremony took place at the tiny church the dear sailors built. Captain Bignami holding the little one in his arms at the baptismal font.

One of the most popular places in the Camp was Dr. Donelson’s office, a tiny surgery, not more than eight feet square. The poor people had soon found him out—the unofficial work of this good physician deserves a whole chapter to itself. The doctor’s patients were not ungrateful; that Easter he had as thank offering a basket of golden citrons; a blue heron, warranted “good eating,” a handful of coppers from Zia Maddalena, whose grandchild he had cured. Though little was said of illness, there was plenty of it about. I was warned not to go near certain hovels, where scarlet fever was raging. The doctor was a daily visitor here; he nursed and tended the little children with a tenderness they will not forget. His office was rarely empty; during the half hour before dinner, when work for the day was over, the officers gathered here to talk things over. Sometimes the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar or the notes of the doctor’s flute came from the little office, with its neat shelves of bottles and faint odor of carbolic acid.

On Monday evening, wishing to consult the doctor about a new installment of clothing, I went to his door. There were voices in the office; the doctor had a patient, so I sat down outside to wait. It was a perfect evening; the sky was still flushed with sunset, the first star stood over the tall spire of the little Gothic church at the campo santo. The dusk fell softly; on the heights above Messina, the outlines of the old Saracen fort were blurred in the violet afterglow. The tramp of the sentinel marked time. Another sound broke the twilight stillness, the sound of the royal march played by a band. Where could it come from? In all Messina there had not been found so much as a drum for the procession. The music came nearer and nearer, a new sound mingled with it, the sound of voices singing and cheering. Lanterns were brought out, the mess-room door thrown open. By the light that streamed out I saw a cab, decked with green branches, drawn by a horse gay with white ostrich plumes. Two of our carpenters sat in the cab, which was followed by a pair of ox-carts, filled with chairs occupied by the carpenters’ guests. The three vehicles were surrounded by a crowd of people, singing and cheering.

“Long live the American carpenters!”

Some of our men had spent the day at a neighboring village, that had escaped the earthquake; they had been escorted home by the whole population. The band departed playing the merry march; the sound grew fainter and fainter in the distance. A bright fire lighted up the dark interior of the little shanty, opposite the Camp, built by Zia Maddalena and Cousin Sofia; the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar repeated the gay notes of the march—how good it was to hear the joyous sounds!

“Will you please tell this woman,” the doctor spoke sternly to his interpreter, “that this child has small-pox. If she doesn’t report it immediately to the health authorities it will go hard with her. She may be fined, or imprisoned for neglecting to do so and it may prove fatal to her child. It’s a menace to the community. Please make her understand this fully, as I shall immediately report the case myself.”

The poor mother, dazed and sorrow-stricken, buried her face in the little bundle in her arms and went weeping to the hospital, where the child—all that the earthquake had left to her—would be taken away from her—perhaps never to be returned.

The next morning at breakfast an unmistakable hint was dropped that my visit had best come to an end. Nothing was said about smallpox—it may, indeed, have had nothing to do with the hint. I have always believed, however, that had it not been for the sick baby, I might have enjoyed a few more days at the Mosella.

That day news came to the Camp of Marion Crawford’s death.

It was known that he was ill, but hopes had been held out of his recovery. He had written lately about the profughi he had sheltered in his villa at Sorrento. In these last months, though suffering greatly, he worked early and late for these poor people. He wrote often concerning them. There was no sign of weakness, either in his firm beautiful handwriting or in his brave cheerful words.

It was strange to read the story of his death, sympathetically as it was told, in an Italian paper. He died, at sunset on Good Friday, sitting in his chair looking out over the Bay of Naples towards Vesuvius, just as the procession of Mary the Mother, returning from her search for her lost Son, passed his door. The news that his strong heart had ceased to beat cast a shadow over the Camp. Though not one of the company except ourselves had any personal friendship with him, each one felt that he had lost a friend.

Our great story-teller had told his last story. Not many men have served their generation as well as he. A wonderful man, more romantic than his romances, more poetic than his poetry, more dramatic than his dramas, his death was in keeping with all the rest—he was an idealist to the last!

As the steamer bore me away from Messina and towards Naples, I looked my last on the old sickle-shaped harbor of Zancle, on Cape Faro, where the current sweeping through the narrow straits was full of bewildering purple, blue, and green tints like a piece of shot silk. We passed a fishing boat with a man standing on a stunted mast above his fellows at the oars, on the lookout for swordfish; above boat and fishermen towered the crag and castle of Scylla. To the left the glass showed a blur of green—was it a new-leaved fig tree—a descendant of the tree Ulysses clung to as his boat slid by “Scylla’s dread abode?” Why not? Sailor, soldier, traveler, king, vagrants, all come and go; the island and its people remain unchanged. I have bought in a market of Trinacria the “hardening cheese heaped in a wicker basket” that Ulysses saw the Cyclops make from the milk of his sheep and goats. I have heard in the olive groves the shepherd’s flute, the neatherd’s song Theocritus heard and preserved for all time in his verse. As the little steamer churned her way through the Tyrrhene Sea, the sun set, the sky flushed and faded again, the stars came out. Little by little the lights on the shore dwindled to mere diamond points, then in a minute they were gone, and with them that faint perfume of the lemon and orange blossoms that had gone along with us while the breeze was from the land.

I have never seen the wonder island again; what remains to tell of the American work there, must be told by others.

“Our last Sunday in camp, June 6th, the great Italian national festival, was celebrated at Villaggio Regina Elena, by throwing open the bridge which had been jointly built by the Italian and American working parties, connecting our respective quarters in the village. A very festal occasion was made of this, the children marching around the village in procession, guided by the teachers of the schools provided for them by the Queen, all of them dressed in clothes made in the village laboratorio, and waving paper flags of all sizes and nationalities, the Stars and Stripes being prominent.

“On the day of departure of the main body from Messina, June 11, I gave a lunch in the dining-room of the hotel we had built, to which were invited Lieutenant-General Del Rosso, commanding the division, with his brigadiers and chief of staff, Major Andrea Graziani (since promoted to lieutenant-colonel, for exceptional services rendered at the time of the earthquake), the new Prefect, Commendatore Buganza, Pro-Sindaco Commendatore Martino, Captain Pericoli, the senior naval officer, representatives of the Genio Civile, other officials of the Government, our own party, including Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Wood, from Taormina, and our faithful contractors, Signor Pella and Signor Saraconi, the painter. In all, about seventy persons sat down to a horseshoe table built for the occasion. The room was freely decorated

with flowers and green, the two national ensigns draped together at the head of the table; and, barring a rather slow service, due to the fact that the cooking was done in our camp kitchens four hundred yards away, this first meal in the hotel was a success. It being our last in Messina, there was a warm interchange of sentiments of the most friendly nature, the Prefect saying that the occasion marked the beginning of a new life in Messina, and the Pro-Sindaco, in the name of the Municipal Council, conferring the honorary citizenship of Messina upon Lieutenant Buchanan, Ensigns Wilcox and Spofford, Dr. Donelson, Mr. Elliott, and myself. When I rose to bid them farewell and to commend to their kind offices Ensign Spofford, who was remaining behind for a little while, General Del Rosso rose and stretched his hand across the table to Spofford, saying: ‘You are our comrade.’

“The main body, however, left Messina shortly after our farewell lunch, by the five o’clock ferry, amid a popular and official demonstration that will never be forgotten by any of us.

“What our American party built in the earthquake area may be seen in the following summary; and to quote some of the things said of it, a translation of the decree of honorary citizenship, and a letter lately received from the Little Sisters of the Poor, are added.

“Allowing an average of six to a family, which is not high for the people who occupy our cottages, the number we built would house twelve thousand; and six thousand more could be provided for by the remaining thousand for which material was provided.

“The church would easily hold three hundred or three hundred and fifty people; fifty or sixty sewing women or other people could work in the laboratorio, comfortably; and seventy-five to eighty children in each schoolhouse. The laboratorio and schools were ceiled and plastered, and built on concrete foundations. All these large buildings are permanent structures, and should last for years.

“The Hospital Elizabeth Griscom, at Villaggio Regina Elena, especially is a worthy group of buildings, based on a substantial concrete foundation, strongly framed, and well finished, all corners rounded in the wall plastering, tiled floors in the surgical rooms, bathroom, and kitchen, and roofed first with rubberoid, then with artificial slate. Painted white, with red roof, and situated high up on the hillside, it stands out from its surroundings, as seen from the harbor, most attractively, while from the windows of the wards of the hospital itself the view is unsurpassed.

“The hotel building was turned over to the authorities with all the wood-working part finished, and in such general condition that a concessionaire could in a short time complete and open it. The form is a wide H, the central part one hundred feet long by thirty-two wide, and each wing one hundred and thirty-two feet by thirty-two feet wide. It is arranged for seventy-five bedrooms, of several sizes, and thirteen or fourteen bathrooms, so grouped as to minimize the amount of branch piping necessary. Great care was taken with the foundation and to make a strongly built structure; and also to make one that should be in some degree worthy of the beautiful site on which it stands.

“Nothing but cottage-building had been contemplated when we went to Messina, and this task had been accomplished at the rate of fifteen cottages built for every day we spent there, including Sundays, holidays, and days of rain. The other work—schools, workroom, church, hotel, hospital—were all additional, their undertaking made possible by the allotment of more funds by the American Red Cross.

“To mark the givers, each house completed bore on the door a plate, reading, ‘U Italy S, 1909,’ or ‘American Red Cross for Italy, 1909.’ These were placed on the cottages, in the proportion of three to one, which was about the ratio of the respective expenditures of the U. S. Government and the Red Cross for this particular work,—roundly $450,000 and $150,000.

“As nearly as could be figured, the whole cost of each cottage came to not more than $235, of which about $35 represented the cost to the Italian Government.”

 

Thanks from the Little Sisters of the Poor

“To the Directing Manager and Gentlemen engaged in the erection of Barracks at Messina.

“Gentlemen:—I, the undersigned, Provincial Superior of the Little Sisters of the Poor, having been apprised of your approaching departure from Messina, feel it my duty to thank you for the great kindness shown to our sisters in that unfortunate country; no words can express our gratitude for the noble manner in which you have treated us.

“We have every reason to hope that our Home will be soon reopened, as it is the desire of our Holy Father, Pius X, that the aged poor should be taken care of.

“Gentlemen, you may rest assured that your benevolence for our work will never, never be forgotten; you will always be considered as our first benefactors and our prayers and the prayers of our dear poor will follow you everywhere. If you come back to visit this desolated country of Messina, we hope you will come at once to see us, as we are really your ‘protegées.’

“Receive, Gentlemen, my most grateful homage, and believe me

“Your most humble servant
“In Christ our Lord,
“St. Aimée de la Providence,
“Provinciale des Petites S’re. des Pauvres.
“Piazza, San Pietro in Vincoli, Roma.
“August 8th, 1909.”

On their way to the ferry-boat the newly made citizens of Messina passed through the Piazza del Duomo and by the ruin of an old Norman cathedral, whose foundations were laid in the year 1098, by order of Roger II. The noble central doorway is still standing; over it is a marble bas-relief of the Madonna. The child has dropped from her arms. Then comes a great rent, for the upper part of the façade has fallen. The mighty columns of the nave (they once upheld the roof of the temple of Poseidon at Faro Point) are snapped like pipestems. Two only remain upright and uninjured. The high altar, a marvel of jasper, chalcedony, and lapis-lazuli, has fallen, broken into a thousand pieces. The splendid gold mosaics of the apse, so hard to see in the old days, are now easily visible. In the central arch over the ruined altar the figure of the Christ is almost intact. From the rich gloom of the mosaics His grave face looks out on the ruins of Messina, upon His world. For the world has never been so truly Christian as it is today; not even when Richard of the Lion Heart wintered in Messina on his way to Palestine to fight for the Holy Sepulchre, that same winter he took to wife the lovely Berengaria. A new name is added to the long list of those who have made their camp beside Charybdis, opposite Scylla, on the most beautiful, the most deadly coast in all the world—the Americans, who came not to conquer or to ravage, but to help and to save. The little boy who greeted Captain Belknap on Easter morning with the words, “Be thou blessed!” expressed the general sentiment of the Sicilians towards the Americans.

In our bustling young country we are so busy looking forward and looking backward that we sometimes lose sight of the only thing that is really ours to make or to mar—today. In Sicily there is more time, and, in the years to come, the old men and old women of Messina will tell the tale, hand down the story of those latter-day Crusaders, Captain Belknap and his men, and what they did in their camp beside the Torrente Zaera.

There was a certain exaltation in all the people who worked for Sicily and Calabria that seemed to lift them above the smallnesses of every day existence. They saw each other transfigured, they lived the heroic life. Each was eager to do the other’s work,—all were quick to sacrifice themselves to the others, as well as to the cause. It was a time when men and women seemed purged of meanness and jealousy. Each saw the god in the other. There was hardly a discordant note. It was like the time of our Civil War, when a breath of heroism passed through the country. No matter what might follow of discord and jealousy, the men and women who passed through that fire of sympathy will never again be quite the same. All their lives they will yearn for the glorified vision of those days; their eyes will never quite lose the keener insight of the mysteries they then attained.

THE END.

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