ablished Artillery and
Machine Gun Schools close to the Lake and several of their officers were
on the steamer.

On the 16th I went with a young officer from a Yorkshire Battalion, a
most agreeable companion, to Desenzano, which was out of bounds. We
played billiards and lunched, and in the afternoon went to sleep on the
grass in the shade beside the Lake. We were driven back in a carrozza
along the promontory by an old Garibaldino, a Capuan by birth, who in
1860 at the age of eleven joined Garibaldi, when he crossed from Sicily
to the mainland, and held older people's horses at the Battle of the
Volturno. He served with the Fifth Garibaldini in the Trentino campaign
of 1866 and knew intimately the country where I had lately been, the Val
d'Ampola and Storo, Tiarno and Bezzecca. He then joined the Italian
Regular Army, and in 1870 was a Corporal in the Pavia Brigade. He was
present at the taking of Rome and claimed that, although an Infantryman,
he helped to load one of the guns which breached the Porta Pia. If this
claim be true, there must have been either a lack of gunners on this
famous occasion, or a certain degree of enthusiastic confusion. Having
entered Rome, he got very drunk and absented himself from his Regiment
without leave for three days. As a punishment he was made to march on
foot, carrying a full pack, from Rome to Padua. He showed us his old
military pay-book, his medals and other souvenirs. Next year he will be
seventy years old and will begin to draw a pension. Having returned to
Sirmione, we arranged with him to drive us next day to the neighbouring
battlefields of 1859, San Martino and Solferino. Much delighted, he
assured me, quite without necessity, that next day he would put on his
best clothes, would wash and shave, and give his horse an extra bit of
grooming.

Accordingly next morning at ten o'clock we started off again in the
carrozza. We visited first San Martino della Battaglia, only a few miles
from the southern end of the Lake. This was the northern extremity of
the battlefield of Solferino. It was here that the Sardinians and
Piedmontese, forming the left wing of the Franco-Italian Army, attacked
and drove back the Austrian right wing. A memorial tower has been
erected here, 250 feet high, with great avenues of cypresses radiating
outwards from it. The custodian is a handsome boy, who lost a leg at the
taking of Gorizia two years ago. There is no stair-case within the
tower; one goes u