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and whole families lived in the dubious privacy afforded by tables, bedsteads, wardrobes, carpets, bed-linen and other odds and ends, hastily arranged to form screens against the perverted curiosity of that unwholesome element which manifests itself most strongly in times of calamity.

Some there were who scorned the privacy of any kind of shelter, who performed their toilets in full view of the idlers who wandered wide-eyed in the hapless settlement, and who enquired in offensive tones of such whether they had nothing better to do.

Here and there a thief followed his calling, appropriating small articles temporarily left without a guardian; and none voiced a protest, for none knew to whom such trifles rightly belonged. Each had enough to do, attending to the business of his own welfare to care greatly about the welfare of his neighbour’s goods.

To James Harley this hotch-potch of humanity and its pathetic belongings recalled a fanciful story he had once written of whimpering, terrified animals driven from a burning jungle to take refuge upon the margin of a crocodile-infested lake; animals which temporarily forgot their natural antipathies in the common danger; animals which moved aimlessly, unconscious of hunger, subdued by fear.

Here, on this narrow strip of shingle which separated fire and water, were gathered men and women who had shelved their animosities for the moment. Neighbours, who had sneered at each other’s futile social triumphs or tiny ambitions yesterday, now commiserated each other on their respective losses and exchanged experiences in the awful moment of the shake. Business men, who had regarded each other as conscienceless thieves yesterday, now chatted gloomily and pitied each other.

Many, men and women, hopelessly bereaved, moved about aimlessly, unable to rest. Here and there a woman sobbed without restraint, heedless of the sympathisers grouped about her. Numbers were