een the last-named place
and the mills of Volta. At the same time they erect batteries at Goito,
Torrione, and Valeggio, pushing their reconnoitring parties of hussars
as far as Medole, Castiglione delle Stiviere, and Montechiara, this
last-named place being only at a distance of twenty miles from Brescia.
Before this news reached me here this morning I was rather inclined to
believe that they were playing at hide-and-seek, in the hope that the
leaders of the Italian army should be tempted by the game and repeat,
for the second time, the too hasty attack on the quadrilateral. This
news, which I have from a reliable source, has, however, changed my
former opinion, and I begin to believe that the Austrian Archduke
has really made up his mind to come out from the strongholds of
the quadrilateral, and intends actually to begin war on the very
battlefields where his imperial cousin was beaten on the 24th June 1859.
It may be that the partial disasters sustained by Benedek in Germany
have determined the Austrian Government to order a more active system
of war against Italy, or, as is generally believed here, that the
organisation of the commissariat was not perfect enough with the army
Archduke Albert commands to afford a more active and offensive action.
Be that as it may, the fact is that the news received here from several
parts of Upper Lombardy seems to indicate, on the part of the Austrians,
the intention of attacking their adversaries.

Yesterday whilst the peaceable village of Gazzoldo--five Italian miles
from Goito--was still buried in the silence of night it was occupied by
400 hussars, to the great consternation of the people who were roused
from their sleep by the galloping of their unexpected visitors. The
sindaco, or mayor of the village, who is the chemist of the place,
was, I hear, forcibly taken from his house and compelled to escort the
Austrians on the road leading to Piubega and Redondesco. This worthy
magistrate, who was not apparently endowed with sufficient courage to
make at least half a hero, was so much frightened that he was taken
ill, and still is in a very precarious condition. These inroads are
not always accomplished with impunity, for last night, not far from
Guidizzuolo, two squadrons of Italian light cavalry--Cavalleggieri di
Lucca, if I am rightly informed--at a sudden turn of the road leading
from the last-named village to Cerlongo, found themselves almost face
to face with four squadrons o