MESSINA. VIA I. SETTEMBRE.
PALMI. THE CATHEDRAL. [Page 158.]
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
