From the first J. refused to read the papers or hear the details, and from the first he said, “I want to go down and dig if I can get the chance, but I don’t want to hear about it.” For some days there seemed no chance of his carrying out his wish of “going down to dig.” The red tape, the slowness, the utter incapacity of the railroads, the post, the telegraph to cope with the situation seemed maddening; it may have been inevitable, it probably was. He offered his services here, there, everywhere, but martial law had been proclaimed and it was impossible to reach the earthquake region without great influence. Thursday, December 31st, the American Ambassador, Mr. Lloyd Griscom, despatched the first American relief party from Rome to Messina. The Ambassador himself had hoped to lead the expedition. In those days of anguish when we knew that thousands of lives might yet be saved if only help came in time, it was torture for such a man to sit with idle hands,--hands that might dig!--no matter how actively he might be working with brain and wits. He soon realized that he could not leave his post; his place was Rome, his work to inspire, organize and plan the American Relief, to dispense the nation’s largess! Major Landis, the military attaché of the embassy, was put in charge of the party. His special care was to search for the bodies of [Illustration: MESSINA. RUINS OF THE AMERICAN CONSULATE. _Page 21._] Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, our Consul and his wife, and to recover the papers of the Consulate, for we knew now that the Consulate had been entirely destroyed. Mr. Bayard Cutting, our Consul from Milan, was of the party, and Mr. Winthrop Chanler, whose mission was to look up missing Americans. From the moment the news of the earthquake was known in America, the Embassy was besieged by telegrams from people at home who had friends in Sicily. The largest American colony in Southern Italy is at Taormina, only two hours distant by train from Messina. It was impossible for our Taorminesi to send word of their safety to their relations at home, who were torn with anxiety about them. It was at this time we first heard that Miss Catharine Bennett Davis of the Bedford Reformatory was traveling in Sicily and it was feared was in Messina, and of Anne Lee, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Paton, Harry Bowdoin, Charles King and Charles Williams, all Americans settled in Taormina by Etna, a town at first believed to have suffered severely. We went up to the station to see the relief party start. The train was half an hour behind time. It was easy to see the impatience of the Americans to be off. “You have plenty of provisions?” a friend on the platform asked Chanler. “I have a sack of Bologna sausages, a whole Parmesan cheese, and a case of Nocera water,” was the answer. “Where will you sleep?” asked an anxious wife of one of the travelers. “We have one small tent, the last in Rome,--all the rest have been bought up,--and several umbrellas.”