Wandering around the city, James was left with two major impressions: “Both are reassuring as to human nature,” he wrote. “The first of these was the rapidity of the improvisation of order out of chaos.” James saw no panic, only purposefulness—people, “whether amateurs or officials, came to the front immediately” and got to work. “It was indeed a strange sight to see an entire population in the streets,” he explained, “busy as ants in an uncovered ant-hill scurrying to save their eggs and larvae.”
