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.

“They all their products to free Nature owe,
The soil untilled, a ready harvest yields,
With wheat and barley wave the golden fields,
Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour,
And Jove descends in each prolific shower.
By these no statutes and no rights are known,
No council held, no monarch fills the throne;
. . . . . . . . . .
Each rules his race, his neighbor not his care,
Heedless of others, to his own severe.”
—Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Pope.

CONTENTS

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]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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]