p by a spiral inclined plane. At successive stages, as
one ascends, are large and detailed paintings, running right round the
inner circumference of the tower, representing the battles of the
Italian Wars of Liberation from 1848 to 1870. As works of art they are
not of the first class, but they convey here and there a vivid sense of
life and movement, an advance of the Bersaglieri with their cocks'
feathers waving in the wind, Garibaldini in their red shirts rushing
Bomba's gunners on the Volturno, Italian cavalry charging a Battalion of
brown-coated Croats at Custozza, the defence of a fort in the Venetian
lagoons against Austrian warships.

On a fine day the view from the top is very good, but that day it was
hazy in the great heat. Close by is an Ossario, containing the skulls
and bones of seven thousand dead collected in the neighbourhood, washed
clean with white wine and set out in neat rows, the majority Italian. A
good warning, one would think, against war, and more compact and less
wasteful of space than a conventional graveyard.

Thence we drove on to Solferino, a little remote village with a single
street paved with cobble stones, seldom visited by foreign tourists. The
plaster on the walls of the farmhouses hereabouts still bears many
bullet marks. As we drove, the Garibaldino pointed out to us some of the
positions where Napoleon III.'s Generals had sited their Batteries. We
were the first British officers seen here during the war, and had an
enthusiastic reception. I was surprised to find that none of our
Regulars had come over from Sirmione, as a matter of professional
interest and duty, to study the tactics of 1859 upon the ground.

We lunched well at a small _albergo_. There were four good-looking
daughters of the house, who came and sat with us in turn and watched us
eat. They had the naturalness and simple charm of dwellers in remote
places. "Four good cows," said the Garibaldino, with the frank realism
of the South, "but all the local proprietors are too old." After lunch
my companion remained in the village, and I climbed the ridge from which
the French drove the Austrians, a very strong natural position even now.
I went up La Rocca, at its south-eastern extremity, on which stands an
old square tower, also converted into a battle memorial. Here again
there are no steps within, but an ascending spiral plane. The slopes at
this end of the ridge are thickly planted with young cypresses, and the
place