No country is perhaps richer in esculent fun-
guses than our own, for we have upwards of
thirty species abounding in our woods. No
markets might, therefore, be better supplied than
the English, and yet England is the only country
in Europe where this important and savoury
food is, from ignorance or prejudice, left to
perish ungathered. In France, Germany, and
Italy, funguses not only constitute for weeks
together the sole diet of thousands, but to many
form a valuable source of income. Indeed,
enthusiastic writers upon the subject have styled
them " the manna of the poor."

THE LAST OF THE WAR
IT is extremely hot, at Dezenzano, this
seventh day of July, eighteen hundred and
fifty-nine. To be on the Lake of Garda on
such a day is equivalent to wishing to be in
it. Yet what would that avail? The lake
smokes as if in a perspiration, and has not
strength to lift fairly ashore the incidental cab-
bage-stalk which has been, for these ten minutes,
feebly filliping the beach in vain endeavours
to effect a landing. An individual of the carp
family, emerging from the depths, gives a lazy
lounge against a piece of crust somebody has
Hung from the balcony of the hotel (who could
have made the exertion?), but the size disgusts
him; and, deferring his dinner to a cooler season,
the scaly epicure permits himself to disappear.
Two little " agones" (the treasures of this lake
fish almost too delicious to cook, had cooking not
been their obvious end), with a pettish whisk of
their tails, endorse the senior's opinion, and
withdraw with equal abruptness from the very
presence of food. Three motionless swallows
sit on my window-sill, with their beaks open to
an extent that suggests the idea of their having
perished by the garrotte and been stuffed as they
died. Nothing is in movement, but a very
brown lady; who, on her knees by the lake, with
a heap of linen at her side, is executing that
process of saturation and cudgelling here recognised
as " washing," and which generally result
in the restoration of one's shirts, marked with
brown streaks, as of profuse weeping, together
with the entire absence of every button they
possessed.

The exertion of brushing a fly from one's
nose acts as a profuse sodorific. An eccentric
combination of doors and windows enable
me to catch a glimpse of the absolute waiter
actually asleep on a couch, with an empty
soda-water bottle in his hand. But to few is
it allotted fairly to behold a slumbering waiter.
When a waiter sleeps, let general nature
nod. In truth a universal lassitude does
prevail. The rumble of forage and munition
carts, the tramp of horse, the jangle of sabre
and spur, have unaccountably surceased. The
very war is asleep!

Bang!

Not exactly. A deep growl (to which, except
for ancient usage, the brief, sharp monosyllable
"bang" would be totally inapplicable), and a
low rattle of window-panes, send the surly denial.
Looking across the foot of the lake so as to
cut off a southern strip of the latter, one may
see a white cloud just dispersing. Below it is
the largest of the formidable earthworks which,
since eighteen hundred and forty-eight, constitute
the defences of Peschiera.

The distance—let us await another gun and
calculate it by the transmission of the sound,
Thirty-four seconds, to a fraction. If Cocker
be worthy of the confidence hitherto reposed in
him, we are seven miles, less one hundred and
twenty yards, from that gun's mouth.

Peschiera is most on the alert when others
sleep, or prefer inaction. Last night, for example,
occurred one of those ghastly storms so
frequent in Italy, compounded of thunder, lightning,
and a hot, furious wind, without a
drop of rain. The lightning was incessant;
there was no calculable space between the
flashes; it was one perpetual blue shimmer;
keeping one's eyes in a condition of unceasing
wink. This moment Peschiera selected for
opening a lively fire upon something or somebody.
The cannonade grew heavier; shells,
fired at an uncommon elevation, made brilliant
arches in the air, and, at one period, a low
grumble of small arms seemed to imply that
something serious was in progress. The artificial
considerably outlasted the natural storm,
and did not subside till dawn, when I retired to
bed in the conviction that the fortress had
either been captured, or had inflicted upon her
assailants a lesson they would not easily forget.
Accordingly, I felt a little disgusted on learning
from a Piedmontese officer, whom I met at
breakfast, " Ce n'était rien, rien du tout. 'Tite
sortie, peut-être." (It was nothing, nothing
whatever. A little sally, perhaps.)

The results of this nothing arrived in the very
hottest part of the hot succeeding day, in the
shape of a cartful of wounded men. One death
only had occurred; that of a gallant young officer
of Bersaglieri, who had survived the perils of
Magenta and Solferino to perish in this night
skirmish. A cannon-shot tore away his left arm
and shoulder. "He made one grimace," said a
soldier, who was much attached to him, and
shed tears, " and was gone."

Alarms by day, and especially this day, are
languid and rare. Nevertheless, an energetic
American officer of engineers, upon whose well-
tanned countenance the sunbeams innocently
play, with a degree of calmness that certainly
entitles him to be considered as in possession of
his senses, proposes a noontide visit to the front!

With some difficulty we get the expedition
deferred till the evening, and reconcile our friend
to the delay by engaging him in conversation on
the subject of his adventures at Solferino. He
has not much of importance to add to what he
has previously related. For has he not told us
already how, being aroused by the guns, he
saddled his horse, and darted away at once in
the direction of the greatest noise? How, from
his profound ignorance of the ground, he had