garland happier trees and stretch gracefully from trunk to
trunk. Especially the landscape looks sad and shabby about the little
village of Villafranca, where, in 1864, the dejected prospect seemed
incapable of a smile even in spring; as if it had lost all hope and
cheerfulness since the peace was made which confirmed Venetia to the
alien. It said as plainly as real estate could express the national
sentiment, "Come si fa? Ci vuol pazienza!" and crept sullenly out of
sight, as our pensive train resumed its meditative progress. No doubt
this poor landscape _was_ imbued, in its dull, earthy way, with a
feeling that the coming of Garibaldi would irrigate and fertilize it
into a paradise; as at Venice the gondoliers believed that his army
would bring in its train cheap wine and hordes of rich and helpless
Englishmen bent on perpetual tours of the Grand Canal without
understanding as to price.

But within and without Mantua was a strong argument against
possibility of change in the political condition of this part of
Italy. Compassed about by the corruption of the swamps and the
sluggish breadth of the river, the city is no less mighty in her
artificial defenses than in this natural strength of her position;
and the Croats of her garrison were as frequent in her sad, handsome
streets, as the priests in Rome. Three lakes secure her from approach
upon the east, north, and south; on the west is a vast intrenched
camp, which can be flooded at pleasure from one of the lakes; while
the water runs three fathoms deep at the feet of the solid brick walls
all round the city. There are five gates giving access by drawbridges
from the town to the fortressed posts on every side, and commanding
with their guns the roads that lead to them. The outlying forts, with
the citadel, are four in number, and are each capable of holding
from two to three thousand men. The intrenched camp, for cavalry and
artillery, and the barracks of the city itself, can receive a garrison
of from thirty to forty thousand men; and the measureless depths of
the air are full of the fever that fights in defense of Mantua, and
serves with equal zeal whoever is master of the place, let him be
French, Italian, or Austrian, so only that he have an unacclimated
enemy before him.

I confess that little of this formidable military knowledge burdened
me on the occasion of my visit to Mantua, and I have already confessed
that I was but very imperfectly informed of the hist