“They had all been singed by death,” writes J. “They looked like death’s heads with the grin and the terror of the skull in their faces. One woman--I saw her once, I heard of her often--went from hospital to hospital, to the refuges, to all the places where there were _profughi_, asking the same question everywhere: ‘Have you here perchance a baby who has the habit of sucking the two first fingers of his left hand?’ That was the only clue she had to her lost child. I never could hear whether or not she found him. In one of the refuges I saw a woman who was said to be one of the richest people in Messina. She had lost every member of her family, she had nothing in the world, not a suit of clothes, not a crust, nothing but herself. Dr. Alessandrini, who is studying the nervous effects of the earthquake, says that most of the survivors dream continually of it. We saw one woman who had dreamed of it every night and each time awoke in a convulsion of fright. They were in great doubt if they could save her life. The children, even the quite grown ones of fourteen or fifteen, however, forgot it all immediately. It was like a bad dream to them.” The automobile accident Thompson referred to, was telegraphed to Rome. At ten o’clock that night I read an exaggerated account of it in a newspaper. “The painter Elliott injured in an automobile accident,” was the heading in the Roman Tribuna. In his letter J. makes light of the accident. “It was nothing but a collision, the jar of which drove my nose through the plate-glass window of the automobile. Sicily is a bad place for automobiles; the people won’t get out of the way. I heard one fellow say, ‘Am I a goat that I should skip out of the way of this thing?’ They are half Oriental; it would be undignified to run in order to get out of the way of a motor. Mr. Robert Winthrop has brought down a lot of tetanus antitoxin. Captain Belknap has divided it between Messina and Catania.” Mr. Thompson’s journal: “January 14th, Reggio di Calabria. Left Catania at four A.M. Went on deck at sunrise. Fine effect on rocky coast and Etna in the background with top covered in cloud. Reached Reggio about eight A.M., but could find no anchorage, so circled about all day. Rough weather. Sent away two life-boats of stores, but could not discharge cargo of lumber taken on at Catania to build shacks at Reggio. Stormy sea and sky with splendid sunset effects. Etna, still with cloud-covered top, against a gold sky and masses of purple cloud. Flint came on board in the evening and heard we were at once to sail for Palermo, to relieve refugees in care of U. S. Consul. Later toward midnight this plan was changed; we are to discharge our stores and lumber here, and start for Palermo Friday night. This day week we left Rome. It seems like a month ago. Reggio on nearer view a sad sight. Lay off Messina for night.