Sicily in Shadow and in Sun: The Earthquake and the American Relief Work — Inside the Classic

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._

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

XIV. MR. ROOSEVELT AT MESSINA 427

XVI. MESSINA (AVE ATQUE VALE!) 466

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

From Drawings by John Elliott

THE TELL TALE TOWER _Frontispiece_

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

VIA BELKNAP, AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA 472

ELIZABETH GRISCOM HOSPITAL, VILLAGGIO REGINA ELENA 476

Illustrations from Photographs

THE MUNICIPIO IN FLAMES, MESSINA 10

RESCUE PARTY OF RUSSIAN SAILORS 11

THE PALAZZATA, MESSINA 11

THE WATER FRONT, MESSINA 40

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