“Bought it! We sent these poor devils half a cargo of tea! They did not know what on earth it was good for, tried to smoke it, chew it, use it as snuff--no go! Finally they put it on sale; now foreigners in camp and on shipboard can buy it at a fair price! The money is put into coffee; _that_ is the very breath of life to a Sicilian.” X THE VILLAGGIO REGINA ELENA “What did you think had happened?” Caterina traced a cross with her bare brown toe in the dusty path of the _campo santo_: “Per Dio, Signora, we thought it was the Day of Judgment. Mamma, babbo and I were dressed, ready to go to work--we live here, my father is _guardiano_. My two brothers were in bed; they were killed. One still remains _sotto le macerie_; there is no way to get the body out. After the 28th of April no more may be moved on account of infection; it is finished.” Caterina, daughter of the porter at the cemetery, a lovely girl of sixteen, was our guide. Smiling, she welcomed us, standing under a sculptured “Genius of Grief.” “A strange guide for such a place!” said Patsy. Strange indeed! Coffins everywhere, and babies in grandams’ arms--the new life pushing aside the old, as the green oak leaves come out beneath the brown. As Caterina led the way up the sunny slope, between cypresses and roses, she pointed out the tottering and broken monuments; the earthquake had wrought strange havoc here. The chapel of the Cavallieri di Messina with its fine Ionic colonnade was a ruin; some of the tombs were wrenched open. “Perhaps these dead, like ourselves, thought that the last day had come,” said Caterina. A wine cart loaded with casks of wine, with a coffin lashed at the back, passed us. It was followed by two women with grim set faces--no tears, they were all shed long ago. Caterina paused by the grave of the patriot, La Farina, picked a red rose and handed it to me with a shy smile. From the upper terrace we looked down on a plain, furrowed as if for planting. A long line of men were digging a trench. Piles of plain unmarked wooden boxes--there must have been several hundreds--were stacked on the ground. “These might be packing cases for dry-goods,” said Patsy. “There’s not the faintest suggestion of the human form, not even the sloping line of the shoulders, to show what they are!” “Will there be no service, no benediction?” I asked Caterina. “God has already given them benediction enough,” she replied. Messina is like a battle-field; there is too much haste for funeral pomp; nothing remains to be done but get the poor human remains out of sight, under ground as soon as possible. From time to time the Archbishop visits the _campo santo_, blesses the dead _en masse_, and sprinkles holy water on the long brown mounds. As we watched the men delving in the fosse, a gay little painted _carretto_ passed, driven by a blond lad with a roguish face and a rose behind his ear. He sat upon two coffins, whistling merrily.