wherever a spring is found, sentinels with loaded
arms reserve it for the use of the sick. Near
Cavriana, a stinking pool is the only source
of water for twenty thousand artillery and
cavalry horses during a couple of days. Wounded
horses, who have lost their riders and have been
wandering about all night, drag themselves
towards groups of their comrades, from whom
they seem to beg aid. Their sufferings are
shortened with a bullet.

Among the dead, the countenances of some
are calm; they are soldiers who, struck
suddenly, were killed on the spot. But a great
number remain twisted by the agony of the
death-struggle, with their limbs stiffened, their
bodies covered with livid spots, their hands
clutching the ground, their eyes unnaturally
staring, their moustaches bristling, and a sinister
and convulsive grin exposing their closed teeth.

Three days and nights were spent in burying
the bodies that remained on the field of battle;
but on such a wide-spread area many men who
happened to be concealed in ditches, or deep
furrows, or screened by thickets and unlevel
ground, were not perceived until some time
afterwards. They gave out, as did also the
horses who perished, a most offensive stench.

In the French army, a certain number of
soldiers per company are designated to take
note of and bury the dead. Usually, those of
the same corps collect the remains of their
companions in arms. They take down the number
marked on the man's linen and accoutrements,
and then, aided in their painful duty by the
Lombard peasants, who are paid for the services
they render, they deposit the body with its clothing
in a common grave. Unhappily, in the hurry
and confusion inseparable from such a task, and
through carelessness and gross neglect on the
part of the peasants, there is every reason to
believe that more than one living man was buried
with the dead. The decorations, money, watches,
letters, and papers found on the officers, are afterwards
sent to their families; but with such a
mass of bodies to bury, it is not always possible
to accomplish this accurately.

IV. THE AMATEUR'S TASK.

ON Saturday, the number of convoys of
wounded sent to Castiglione becomes so
considerable that the administration, the inhabitants,
and the detachment of troops left there,
are absolutely insufficient to relieve such a mass
of misery. Then commence scenes as lamentable
as those of yesterday, only totally different
in kind. There is water and there are provisions,
and yet the patients die of hunger and
thirst; there is lint in abundance, but there are
not enough hands to apply it to the wounds.
Well or ill, a volunteer service must be organised,
which is anything but easy amidst such disorder.

The 25th, 26th, and 27th, were days of
suffering and agony. The wounds, envenomed by
the heat and the dust, and by the want of water
and attention, became more painful; mephitic
exhalations infected the air, in spite of the efforts
of the intendance; and the insufficient number
of assistants and servants was cruelly felt—for,
every quarter of an hour, fresh batches of
wounded arrived. On the floors of the hospitals
and churches, lay, side by side, sufferers of
all nations—Frenchmen, Arabs, Germans,
Slavonians. Some, thrust into the recesses of
side-chapels, could not stir in the narrow space
they occupied. Oaths, blasphemies, and cries
which no words can render, resounded beneath
the roofs of sanctuaries. "Ah, monsieur! how
I suffer!" some of them groaned to the Amateur.
"We are abandoned and left to die miserably;
and yet we fought well."

In spite of the fatigue they have endured, and
the nights they have passed without sleep, repose
is unattainable. In their distress, they implore
for medical assistance, or fall in their despair
into convulsions, which terminate in locked-jaw
and death. Of some, the faces are blackened by
the number of flies settled on their wounds; of
some, the bloody clothing is filled with maggots.
One soldier has a broken jaw, and his burning
tongue protrudes from his mouth; he struggles
to rise, and cannot. The Man in White moistens
his lips and applies lint soaked in cold water, to
his tongue. Another soldier has his nose and
lips slashed away by a sabre-cut; unable to
speak, and half-blinded, he makes imploring
signs with his hand. Le Monsieur Blanc gives
him drink, and pours a few drops of pure water
on his bloody face. A third, with his skull cleft,
is expiring on the flagstones of the church; his
companions in misery push him aside with their
feet, because he impedes the passage. Le Monsieur
Blanc protects his last moments, and
spreads a handkerchief over the poor head which
still moves feebly. "Don't leave me to die!"
exclaimed several, who, after grasping his hand
violently, expired as soon as that factitious
strength abandoned them. A young corporal,
twenty years of age, with a bullet in his left side,
said, with tears in his eyes, "Ah, monsieur, if
you could write to my father, and tell him to
comfort my mother!" M. Dunant took the address
of his parents, and, a few minutes afterwards,
he had ceased to live. An old sergeant, with
several stripes, said, with a sad and bitter
accent, "If I had been attended to sooner, I
might have lived. As it is, I shall be a dead
man to-night." And he did die during the
night.

But what, it may be asked, is the use of
dwelling on such scenes of desolation? Why
should the reader's feelings be so shocked? The
question is natural, but may be replied to by
asking another. Are there no means of founding,
throughout Europe, VOLUNTARY SOCIETIES FOR
THE HELP OF THE WOUNDED IN WAR?

Since we are obliged to renounce the hopes
and wishes of the Peace Society; since men
continue to kill each other, without entertaining
personal hatred; since the height of glory, in war,
is to exterminate the greatest possible number
of fellow-creatures; since it is held, as Comte
Joseph de Maistre affirms, that "war is divine;"
since instruments of destruction, more terrible
than those we already possess, are being