Our second duty was to find and succor Americans. Among the survivors at Messina, besides Dr. Lupton and Agresta, we found only one family, a naturalized American with the six small children of one of his brothers who lived in Brooklyn. These we sent back to the United States. But, what Americans had been killed? This question we had no means of solving. We had brought with us long lists of Americans known to be in Sicily, whose relatives were inquiring anxiously about their fate. Something must be attempted in order to put an end to the agonized suspense of so many families. Most of the persons whom we wished to find were doubtless safe at one of the Sicilian resorts. As for telegrams, none had yet arrived from any source, and letters were not delivered until the eleventh day; there were no postal clerks, we were informed, to distribute them. It was plain that the only way to get information was to go and get it. Two of us were accordingly detailed to take the train to Taormina. After obtaining with some difficulty the military pass allowing us to return, we walked to the railroad station and boarded a train. No one knew whether it would start that day or the next. As a matter of fact it began to move less than two hours after our arrival, and with surprising speed considering its portentous length and its over-crowded condition. In spite of long stops at every station, to take out wounded or to let them aboard, the journey of thirty miles was completed in two hours and a quarter. We were surprised to find that after eight or ten miles all signs of destruction ceased. The first villages were in ruins, like Messina; and in the fields soldiers were digging great rows of trenches, in which they deposited lime: obviously the sea was no longer to receive all the dead. But soon we came upon towns with only a few fallen houses; before long a mutilated roof was a curiosity; and fifteen miles from Messina the country presented a completely normal appearance. We did not realize then that those villages between Messina and Taormina were in greater distress than any district, probably, in the whole of Sicily or Calabria. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of refugees from the city fled on foot to these little towns, imploring charity. The inhabitants received them with true hospitality and gave them of their best. But as the days and weeks passed the supply of food ran short. Nothing arrived by rail; the trains were filled with cargoes for Messina or else for Taormina or Catania; charity passed the little places by. It was a month after the earthquake that two American gentlemen from Taormina, Messrs. Wood and Bowdoin, discovered and reported the incredible distress of this starving rural population. And now another American, Mr. Billings, of Boston, is devoting himself to the relief of this district and is spending there the principal part of the generous offerings of Massachusetts. TAORMINA.