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.