apparently insignificant spark was thus lighted
up, in a short space of time, a terrible conflagration.
It was a fierce struggle from house to
house. There was fighting, foot to foot, in the
crowded streets. Houses were left filled with
Austrian dead. Every garden and orchard was
the scene of a deadly fray. The contest ended
in the cemetery; over the native inhabitants of
the place, who had long since departed in peace,
was left a thick stratum of invaders slain with
the bayonet—all of which will be quickly hidden
beneath the verdant pall of Piedmontese
vegetation. It was at Montebello that an Austrian
soldier, after the battle, remained four days in
a cellar, behind a cask to which frequent visit
were paid. All that while, he never stirred.
His foot was wounded, and a bullet had gone
through his thigh. His was the courage and
the resolution inspired by fear. The cask had
to be removed before he could be persuaded to
come out. The poor wretch is in a fair way of
recovery, and, in the French hospital, has no
need to regret his cellar.

Death leaves little trace behind him. After
drownings, which suddenly sever the dearest
ties, the murderous stream flows on as smooth
as ever. The sea, which has swallowed whole
ships' crews at noon, will at evening glance
and smile in the setting sun with all apparent
innocence; even by land, the trace of carnage
disappears with marvellous rapidity. At first,
the very next day after a battle, the contested
ground may offer a terrible and affecting aspect.
You will see, lying amongst the wheat, stretched
by the roadside or fallen against the trunks of
trees, corpses still contorted by the agonies of
death. This is the brief interval when the scene
is still strewed with waggons smashed into
chips and the mutilated carcases of cavalry
horses. But, in three or four days it is all cleared
away. A passing stranger, unenlightened by a
guide, would never suspect that the fiery
tempest of war had so lately burst over that
verdant spot. The battle of Montebello began
near Voghera. Here and there, along the road
a few mulberry branches have been cut off by the
bullets. A circular cut on the trunk of a tree
tells you that a cannon-ball has flown in that
direction; the corner of a wall is shattered; the
plaster of a cottage has fallen off in scales; a
square of glass is broken in a window, or a
shutter is pierced with two or three round holes.

Meanwhile, the cow peaceably grazes the
wayside grass; the washerwoman rinses linen—not
her own, but shirts of strange fashion—at the
edge of the brook; the ploughman drives his
slow-paced oxen; the. housewife spins her flax,
her children are merrily rolling in a corner; at
the door of the inn the beggar stretches out
his hand, whining his accustomed nasal petition.
The energies of earth rapidly screen, beneath a
luxuriant garment of emerald green, the
temporary mischief caused by man. While
admiring the picturesque coquetry of Nature—her
clumps of trees mingled with scattered buildings,
her wide-extended plains, whose horizon is
guarded by the phantom forms of Mont Cenis,
Mont Genèvre, Mont Blanc, and Monte Rosa;
her rows of poplars fringing the Po, a reach of
which starts forth from its bowery hiding-place
to glance in the sunshine—who could believe he
was treading the theatre of war? Of the deadly
struggle of Montebello scarcely a trace will soon
remain. Here and there only the wheat is
trodden down over considerable spaces; the
trampled corn betrays the passage of artillery;
the trained vines are broken with gaps, or the
stem of a young tree has snapped asunder. A
gaiter, a collar, the wreck of a soldier's cap, lie
half hidden in the grass; sundry clods of earth,
by the side of a furrow, are stained with an
unusual tinge of red; you examine them more
closely; they are soaked and saturated with
blood. There, amidst the vine-leaves, wet with
dew, hang the tatters of an Austrian waistcoat;
its cloth is stiffened in places with brick-red
spots. In a shady corner, lie the remains of a
horse. And that is all; except that in the
cemetery are a couple of large graves containing
the bodies of the Austrians who fell in their
last retreat. Patches of fresh earth indicate
the spots where sundry soldiers are laid to take
their final rest. But, goats and sheep bleat
around as if nothing had happened; and laughing
girls fill their sacks with mulberry-leaves, for
the rearing of silkworms, which, whether in
peace or war, must still be fed.

Poor Croats! They are led to the slaughter,
almost in the ignorance of beasts that perish.
Up to the very last minute, the Austrian generals,
in obedience to superior orders, made their
soldiers believe that the Brigade of Savoy and
Garibaldi's troops had disguised themselves in
French uniforms to frighten them! Such was
the persistance of this falsehood, joined to the
impossibility of a letter or a newspaper getting
into Lombardy, that many Austrian officers long
retained the persuasion that the French army
had not yet departed from Algeria or Lyons!
The Gazette of Venice treated the presence of
the French in Italy as a pleasant joke. Garibaldi,
however, is everywhere an object of terror.
The Austrian soldiers regard him with
superstitious awe. His very name is a bugbear. As
long as he remained at Caviglia the enemy were
very discreet in their reconnoitring parties; as
soon as they were sure he was gone, they pushed
out bravely. Garibaldi's courage is acknowledged
by friend and foe. Loyal in conduct, and of
unimpeachable integrity, he will not overlook
the slightest breach of the discipline which he has
instituted. In this respect his severity is
excessive. When he was at Savigliano, organising
his little corps, there was great difficulty in
preventing the execution of a volunteer who had
stolen a ring worth half-a-crown. The Duke of
Wellington did once, it is said, cause a private
soldier to be hanged for stealing a turnip. Without
such severe examples, it is not always that
the discipline of an army can be maintained.

The highest possible compliment to Garibaldi
is incidentally recorded by Mr. Gallenga in his
account of the carriage-horses in and about
Turin, which are worse than indifferent. The