Now that we look back, what they did seems incredible. Remember, it was Sunday morning, January 3rd, that the Ambassador appointed his committee to help him put through the thing he had planned to do; the work of the next three days would not be believed if it could be told. From the beginning Griscom did the impossible--the only thing worth doing in this world. He was told that the idea of fitting out a relief ship was chimerical; every available steamer was already engaged by the Italian Government. Even if a ship could be found, where would the supplies come from? The Roman shops were well nigh sold out. If ship and cargo could be scared up, how to get the cargo to the ship? It took a month to get a box from Rome to Naples! This last argument seemed final! Every objection was met, every obstacle overcome. In three days the ship was found, the cargo bought, the men and women of the relief crew enlisted, ready, _eager_ to start. Monday Captain Belknap engaged the Austrian Lloyd steamer “Oceania;” she could be ready to sail in nine days. Monday night the North German Lloyd’s agent telephoned, offering the “Bayern” to be ready to sail from Genoa Wednesday, January 6th. This was a saving of six days; the offer of the “Bayern” was accepted, the Austrians handsomely refusing to claim the forfeit of one thousand dollars due them for breach of contract. Who says corporations have no heart? The committee knew they could count on the Germans to do what they undertook to do. The discipline, the steady hammer-hammer of the army drill master has got into the very blood and bones of that nation. So the ship was found! As for the cargo: when the committee was not in session, William Hooper, the famous Harvard athlete, Samuel Parrish, the connoisseur of Italian Cinque Cento, Nelson Gay, the historian, George Page, the banker, were working under the lash, buying coats, blankets, shawls, pins, needles, biscuits, cheese, sausages, picks, shovels--all they could lay hands on of these grave-digger’s tools, for still on the eighth, the tenth day after the earthquake, even later, men and women were taken out alive from the ruins. In Genoa, James Smith, American Consul, was gathering together a vast store of hams, beans, potatoes, salt pork, rope, canvas, candles, all the ship wares to be found in the great seaport. It was one thing to put these goods bought in Genoa on board the “Bayern,” but how to get the masses of clothing, tools, food, medicines and bedding, purchased in Rome--a tithe of which cumbered the great hall of the Palazzo del Drago--to the ship? “If the railroad to the south cannot take the goods to Naples, the railroad to the north shall take them to Civitavecchia; the old papal seaport is as good a place to sail from as from Naples!” Griscom argued; so that knot was cut.