The chart-house of the “Celtic” became a sort of Box and Cox apartment. By night Captain Belknap slept there; by day J. stood at his drawing-board and worried out the plans for America’s part of the New Messina. His letter diary, written on odd scraps of paper, gives little flashes of side-light on the enterprise. On the 22nd of February he writes: “I have just had breakfast; the coffee with rich American cream is a dream. I am having a glorious time designing a hotel. Tomorrow the ship arrives with the first lot of houses to be put up here. Mr. Billings, representing the Massachusetts Committee, (interesting man), and those two delightful men from Taormina, Bowdoin and Wood, that I met before, lunch on board. “February 23rd: The first American timber ship, the ‘Eva,’ is dropping anchor at this moment close by. Tomorrow the real rush will begin. Everything is all so new on board a ship like this that I enjoy it thoroughly. I am treated like a king. I have been designing a little outside kitchen, a very primitive arrangement; I hope it will work. “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!