Excavating the Ruins of Mr. Peirce’s House.
Our second duty was to find and succor Americans. Among the survivors at Messina, besides Dr. Lupton and Agresta, we found only one family, a naturalized American with the six small children of one of his brothers who lived in Brooklyn. These we sent back to the United States. But, what Americans had been killed? This question we had no means of solving. We had brought with us long lists of Americans known to be in Sicily, whose relatives were inquiring anxiously about their fate. Something must be attempted in order to put an end to the agonized suspense of so many families. Most of the persons whom we wished to find were doubtless safe at one of the Sicilian resorts. As for telegrams, none had yet arrived from any source, and letters were not delivered until the eleventh day; there were no postal clerks, we were informed, to distribute them. It was plain that the only way to get information was to go and get it. Two of us were accordingly detailed to take the train to Taormina.
After obtaining with some difficulty the military pass allowing us to return, we walked to the railroad station and boarded a train. No one knew whether it would start that day or the next. As a matter of fact it began to move less than two hours after our arrival, and with surprising speed considering its portentous length and its over-crowded condition. In spite of long stops at every station, to take out wounded or to let them aboard, the journey of thirty miles was completed in two hours and a quarter. We were surprised to find that after eight or ten miles all signs of destruction ceased. The first villages were in ruins, like Messina; and in the fields soldiers were digging great rows of trenches, in which they deposited lime: obviously the sea was no longer to receive all the dead. But soon we came upon towns with only a few fallen houses; before long a mutilated roof was a curiosity; and fifteen miles from Messina the country presented a completely normal appearance. We did not realize then that those villages between Messina and Taormina were in greater distress than any district, probably, in the whole of Sicily or Calabria. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of refugees from the city fled on foot to these little towns, imploring charity. The inhabitants received them with true hospitality and gave them of their best. But as the days and weeks passed the supply of food ran short. Nothing arrived by rail; the trains were filled with cargoes for Messina or else for Taormina or Catania; charity passed the little places by. It was a month after the earthquake that two American gentlemen from Taormina, Messrs. Wood and Bowdoin, discovered and reported the incredible distress of this starving rural population. And now another American, Mr. Billings, of Boston, is devoting himself to the relief of this district and is spending there the principal part of the generous offerings of Massachusetts.
TAORMINA.
Taormina was full of rumors. For a week the only news had been supplied by wounded refugees, distraught with fear and misery; in their description the earthquake had become almost a supernatural event. Strange lights had blazed in the sky; a comet had struck the earth and raised the waters of the deep. Luckily the wires to Catania and Syracuse, and from Catania to Palermo, were open. By telegraphing to all of these cities and by searching the hotel registers of Taormina, we were able to find nearly all the names on our lists. There were many Americans still in Taormina and many English. All of them were working together, distributing relief and caring for the sick. A hundred and fifty refugees were in the hospital of Taormina and three hundred and eighty in the little fishing village of Giardini at the foot of the cliff. Our countrymen were working night and day to help them, giving them food and clothing; and instead of complaining of the heavy burden of so many patients, they begged us to send more. One or two of them met every train from Messina, to distribute bread to the hungry passengers. The ladies devoted themselves chiefly to the hospitals, where they worked with unremitting energy.
BACK TO MESSINA.
Our brief glance at the efficient relief of Taormina made the conditions at Messina, upon our return, seem even more desperate than before. Here the problem was vastly complicated by the dispersion of the population and the lack of any registers of inhabitants. The scarcity of houses had driven the population to take refuge, so far as possible, in the hill villages surrounding the town. Here most of the families were installed, not only the able-bodied, but the sick and wounded as well. One of each family would spend the days in Messina, trying to procure enough food to keep his relatives alive. The complete lack of transport animals and the absorption of the soldiers in the work of rescue, made relief expeditions to the villages impossible. For food distributions in Messina the rule had been adopted; one man, one loaf. The absence of registers made it possible for a strong man to push repeatedly to the head of the line, and to get bread at all the distributing places in succession. The result was a more or less disorderly rush for bread at all the distributing points, and the exclusion of all but the strongest, while many worthy families suffered from hunger in the midst of comparative plenty.
On the evening of our first arrival at Messina, I had a chance to talk to Senator Duranti, the chief of a hospital expedition sent by the order of the Cross of Malta. I asked him what articles of food, clothing and medical supplies were most needed, and how the American money accumulating in Rome could be spent with most profit to Messina. He told me that medical stores of all kinds were sadly wanted, and that there was still a lack of food, bread, macaroni, olive oil, butter, and especially milk—for the women and children—and also underclothes and shirts. The milk should be sterilized, not condensed, because the ignorant peasant women could not be induced to give their children an unaccustomed food, especially if it had to be prepared or mixed. Acting upon Senator Duranti’s advice, we telegraphed that night to the Ambassador in Rome for the enumerated supplies. The U. S. despatch boat Scorpion, which had just arrived from Constantinople, was starting for Naples to coal. Her commander, Captain Logan, kindly took our dispatches to the Ambassador, and brought back the supplies, which we received on the 6th. At the same time we learned that an American relief ship was being stocked in Rome, and would soon arrive with huge stores of food and clothing, and that the U. S. S. Culgoa was due on the 8th from Port Said with immense supplies of all kinds.