meat. Then the captain ordered that the fugitives should go below.
We were taken into the second-class cabin which was set apart for the
women and children.

Next day when we arrived at Naples they would not let us disembark
till we had had coffee, after which we all collected and were landed
in boats. First, however, they made all the men descend into one
boat and in another boat all the women.

When we had disembarked at Naples they at once wanted all our names
and then took us to an institution called "Vittoria Colonna," where
in order to restore us we were each given a good cup of coffee and
milk.

THIS LITTLE DESCRIPTION
OF
28 DECEMBER 1908
WRITTEN AT BOLOGNA 27. 1. 09
IS PRESENTED TO
MR. HENRY FESTING JONES
WHO WILL PRESERVE IT AS A LASTING RECORD
OF
TURIDDU BALISTRIERI
FUGITIVE FROM MESSINA

While they were in Messina the children and the niece slept at night, but
the professor and his wife did not sleep at all, and for two of the days
the professor and his wife ate nothing and drank nothing. They were able
to collect drops of rain water, especially when they were in the railway
carriage where they had a roof, and they sometimes collected a little
wood and made a fire. Earthquake shocks were continually occurring.

The professor is also an imbalsamatore and, as an example of his skill,
gave me a stuffed bird which I was to take to London. He said it was a
kind of quail, a bird that reposes near Messina when migrating. His
niece, the studentessa, gave me as a ricordo a pin-cushion; on one side
it has an advertisement of a shop in Messina and on the other a picture
of a lady trying on a new garter, which has been bought at the shop and
which fits perfectly to the delight of her maid and the astonishment of
her grandmother. They had saved these things after the earthquake. One
does not look a gift-horse in the mouth, but I have sometimes wondered
whether the buffo's Cold Dawn had followed the professor and the
studentessa in their flight and whispered to them that they had saved the
wrong objects. Still, a pin-cushion is always useful.

RAILWAY PORTERS

Some year