“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
| LT. COMMANDER BELKNAP PUTTING THE AMERICAN CAMP IN COMMISSION. [Page 247.] | AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. HAULING UP THE COLORS. [Page 247.] |
