VII Building the New Messina
“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 Flying Dutchman sailed away, oh yes, oh!
He tried to enter Table Bay a hundred years ago!”
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:—
“Most Illustrious Sir:—My Government entrusts me with the honor of according you the right to occupy a camp in the Valley of the Mosella, and to acknowledge the justice of your desires that the National Flag of the United States of America should fly above the place during the daylight.” Etc., etc., etc.
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.