I do not know what words could adequately convey the extent of service rendered by all the fleets, but especially the British and Russian. As transports, store ships, refugees’ hospitals, telegraph stations they had been invaluable: but it was as rescuers of the living that they were pre-eminent. The Russian sailor was a revelation to those who did not know the quiet common sense, the tactful sympathy and the unassuming heroism of the moujik. The Russians were the only people who always had everything on the spot. The saying got about that they had ordered the earthquake and fitted out a fleet beforehand for the purpose of relief. As to the British bluejackets, they had not a reputation to make. They did exactly what was expected of them; and in the expected way; that is with energy and courage, with easy practical mastery of every kind of work, and with complete unconsciousness of anything unusual or particularly meritorious in their performance. And the English nation and press, instinctively realizing that silence may be a higher tribute than praise, has accepted the fleet’s work at its own valuation; as a task performed in the ordinary way of duty, and performed well, as became British sailors. About the same time or a little later, the water supply was connected with a portion of the town. Lack of water had been one of our chief discomforts. It could be procured at one place only, two miles from the consulate; with great difficulty we had obtained a pailful each day for our party. The streets had become filthy beyond description: now it was possible to flood them. A train to Palermo crawled out of Messina from time to time. The dead were being removed from the streets, and many of them were buried instead of being taken out to sea. On the fires in front of the tarpaulin houses stood pots of macaroni cooking. The hospital ships which departed for Naples, Genoa or Catania were no longer crowded to over-flowing. The people actually living in Messina were comparatively comfortable. But every improvement in organization brought out more clearly the needs which confusion had obscured. Inside the city and out, no one had any clothes except what he had been able to snatch from his house on the morning of the 28th; and not two miles from the Municipio, in all directions, ran the hunger line—beyond which lay the region of actual famine.