Sleeping and praying, weeping and cursing, unconscious and paralyzed with terror, Messina died in the murdering cruelty of the most appalling of all the disasters the heroic city had ever known.
The Cathedral, which was begun in 1098 and finished by King Roger, had shared the misfortunes of the city. Earthquake and fire and the still more vandal hand of the restorer had robbed it long before of almost all semblance to the plans of King Roger’s architects. And the gods of the earth, being no respecters of buildings, hurled it down into ruin like the commonest hut in the city. Not all its massiveness and splendor could save it from the common fate; not all its treasures of goldsmith’s work and sculpture and art. But though it fell, the people of the dauntless city did not blench. Crushed and dazed as they were, one of the first buildings they put up was a new house of prayer. Hastily knocked together of rough boards, the triumphant symbol of hope and faith nailed firmly above it, that pitiful church spoke dramatically of the spirit that defies defeat and honors victory.
The city has arisen anew in a metropolis of more than 65,000 souls, with suitable churches now. Moreover, the commercial spirit of the people asserted itself almost immediately, and exports began with scarcely any delay. In the new Messina that has sprung up—a little to the south and a trifle farther inland—away from the chaos of wrecked buildings and blasted hopes, there is at least a measure of safety. It is largely a wooden city; the buildings are restricted in height, and no fires are permitted expect in the kitchens, which are built of brick.
The American relief work is especially interesting to us. No less than 1336 two-room-and-kitchen houses were put up by American hands and with American materials and money in the new Messina, and five hundred more across the Strait in Reggio di Calabria, a total of 1836, capable of housing more than 12,000 people. Each family is bound under pain of expulsion to observe stringent rules for public safety and sanitation, approved by Queen Elena herself. In places these low, white clapboarded cottages, shaded by mulberry trees, have a decidedly New England town appearance. Beside these, American funds built an hotel with seventy-five rooms and thirteen or fourteen baths; a church where some 350 people can worship; two schools that care for eighty children each, and the Elizabeth Griscom Hospital, in which every available resource of modern sanitary engineering in design and construction was employed. White-walled and red-roofed, it stands high on the hillside, a very attractive sight from the Bay, its windows commanding a sweeping view which is a tonic in itself.
During the reign of horror that followed the fall of the city, fire and snow, rain and pestilence added their agonies to the already overflowing tragedy. But British and American, Russian and French bluejackets toiled heroically, regardless of personal danger from falling ruins or infection from the stench of thousands of unburied corpses, to help their Italian brethren succor the wounded and rescue the dying. King Victor Emmanuele himself, disregarding comfort and personal safety, hurried to the scene and risked his life in superintending the work of rescue, endearing himself to the Nation by his cool bravery and resourceful tenderness to the sufferers. And not only the King, but Queen Elena, who accompanied him, struggled through the ruins day after day, braving hardships and danger, aiding the wounded and dying with her own hands. All Italy arose and called her blessed. They gave her a new name. She was no longer merely Regina d’Italia—Queen of Italy—but Regina di Pietà—Queen of Pity.
XVI
THE NORTHERN SHORE
ALONG the northern coast from Messina westward to Palermo, almost every foot of the way has some historic interest. High among the precipitous cliffs above the present station of Rometta, the Christians held out against the invading Saracens—who had entered the island in 827—until 965. Rometta was the last place to fall. A little farther along the rocky shore Sextus Pompey was annihilated by Agrippa in the battle of Naulochus in B. C. 36. Milazzo, sixteen miles from Messina, is the site of ancient Mylæ, Messina’s first colony, which had a stirring time of it through all the centuries. The last big event in her history was Garibaldi’s victory over the Neapolitans, freeing the city from the hated Bourbon rule.
The train runs over fiumare after fiumare—riverbeds dry in Summer, rushing torrents in Winter—and vineyards stretch beside the track in vast expanses of low, bushy vines, ripe with promise. Then, with a shriek, the engine drags us in a cindery cloud of smoke through the promontory on which stood Tyndaris, the Greek colony founded by Dionysius I. The town stood nine hundred feet above the black hole into which we plunge. What would be the sensations of this swash-buckling Greek could he see the rock to-day, with the trains, black worms darting through the solid rock he never dreamed of penetrating! More tunnels follow fast, then another cape, and a stretch of glad, open, smiling country that makes one think of the orchards at home.
Picturesque towns, groves of oleanders, battered old Roman bridges and medieval castles in which life is still of the Dark Ages, flit by rapidly until Caronia is reached. Here, nearly 2,600 years ago, a Sikel settlement called Kalé Akté—Beautiful Shore—was made under an ambitious leader named Ducetius, who hoped to save the remnant of his people who were still free in the interior, from absorption by the Greeks. A single defeat, however, crushed this native rising, and all hope of Sikel independence vanished in 444 with the death of Ducetius. “Beautiful Shore” withered away until to-day Calacte is a commonplace Sicilian town with even a commonplace name, and only its memories to save it from utter insignificance.
