not permit of this, but, by a very singular coincidence,
the boy, on reaching the hospital, found
his " zio" in the next bed to his own.

Here is a poor fellow, careless of his shattered
arm, but crying bitterly for the loss of his officer,
St. Martino, who is in the list of killed, and
whose death, on the well-contested heights which
happen to bear his name, was one of the many
interesting episodes of the war. He had been,
as he considered, unjustly overlooked in a matter
of promotion. The captain of his company
being slain in the last attack upon St. Martino,
the command which should have been his by
right devolved upon him by casualty. Determined
to prove himself worthy of it, and throwing
himself far before his men, he encouraged
them to storm the Austrian battery that crowned
the position. A grape-shot tore his thigh, but
finding himself still able to walk, he continued
by voice and example to animate his men, and
only when the height was fairly won allowed
his wound to be examined. It was too late.
Exhausted by loss of blood—for the injury was
not necessarily mortal—he had but time to
dictate a message to his friends, and so expired.

The patients are suffering much to-day from
fever. There is one case of typhus—which has
been isolated—and a threatening of a much-
dreaded disease, hitherto confined to Lombardy
the " milijaja," the proper treatment of which
has only recently been determined. The chief
characteristic is a violent rash, which must
be at once freely thrown out, or the patient
dies.

The attendants are kind but few. The influx
of wounded has exceeded all calculation, and the
thirty-four crowded hospitals of Brescia furnish
full employment to nurses and medical men.
Provisions at Dezenzano and the neighbouring
villages are scarce and amazingly dear, nor can
it be disguised that the enthusiasm for freedom
which so strongly characterises the people as
far as Brescia, undergoes a remarkable change
so soon as that line is passed. On the pretext
that the Austrians had made a clean sweep of
the country—an excuse of which it was not
difficult to ascertain the utter falsehood—the
tradespeople frequently refused to supply the
common necessaries for the wounded, except at
three times the usual price. On one occasion
no bread whatever was to be obtained. There
are but two bakers in Dezenzano, and these
patriotic men put up their shutters in the teeth
of the hungry applicants, averring that they had
no flour, whereas any amount of that necessary
article was obtainable from Brescia in four or
five hours.

The language of the peasant population was
decidedly discreet and calm.

"Well, how do you like the change?" was
the question a friend of mine was fond of putting,
accompanied with an encouraging smile,
to every rural proprietor he met.

The reply was generally conveyed in one word:

"Vedremo." (We shall see.)

Can it be that the process of denationalisation
had already made such progress? Was
the rabbit absolutely in course of digestion in
the mighty serpent's maw? "Vedremo." It
sounds significant.

Our basket is empty. Some words of
encouragement, a touch of the burning hands,
an arrangement of the pillow, is all we have
to bestow upon the remaining invalids; but
the very notice is enough, and we defy any one
to refuse thus much to the piteous, " Ah, signor!
ah, signor!" which follows any attempt to
pass without it.

Farewell, poor soldiers of ransomed Italy—
still in the strife—for surely it is in the heat,
the fever, the squalor—in the inevitable neglect,
the unmitigable pain, the heavy changes of
day to night, and night to day, the anxious
thought, and frenzied dream—that the worst
and most trying fight is waged.

Man, while he lives, must dine. The very
worst repast, for the eating of which mortal individual
was ever fined four francs, occupies
half an hour. And now it is six o'clock. Order
the horses. Away towards Peschiera!

In company with Major G., a gallant Piedmontese
officer who served in the Crimea, and
now commands the waggon-train; we canter off
towards Pozzolengo, about an hour's easy ride.
Leaving our horses at the little albergo, we push
on to certain heights about a mile further—near
Sansoni—and there, as on a map, lie spread
before us Peschiera and the war. The town
itself, lying in a trench, is only distinguishable
by a tower and some dimly seen roofs; but the
works which give importance to the place are
clear enough. We are not more than a mile
and a half from " number four," the largest link
in that formidable chain of thirteen forts which
hangs around the neck of Peschiera the war-
like.

Is it possible that these light-brown hillocks,
with green crowns and a knob on the top,
looking like half-completed railway embankments,
really hold at bay the victorious
hosts of France and Piedmont? If we except
that solitary sentinel standing motionless
on an angle of the nearest work, not a sign
of life is visible in any direction in the country
held by the enemy. The evening is still and
beautiful—the landscape like one rich garden,
sparkling with villas, with here and there a
village clock-tower—in castled ruin, lifting a
hoary head above the abundant trees. In the
valley—half way to the enemy—are the still
smoking remains of a beautiful château, burned
by the Austrians two or three days ago. It was
done with the greatest politeness. The proprietor
was in the act of sitting down to his
two o'clock dinner, when an Austrian officer presented
himself, with the compliments of his
general, and an intimation that, as the position
of the château had become strategically inconvenient,
a party would attend to burn it down
that evening or the following morning, whichever
might be most convenient to the owner. It
was now garrisoned by neither party, but each
had established an outpost fifty yards from the
walls.