all the republicans. A corps of about 8000
volunteers was ready to start for a descent on the coast of the Papal
States. At present it was in the island of Sardinia, awaiting the
arrival of Garibaldi to assume the command. And now occurred
Garibaldi's mysterious disappearance from Cape Faro, which at the time
excited endless curiosity. The truth was, that he actually went to
Sardinia, but instead of taking command of the volunteers bound for
Rome, he induced them to alter their plans and to join his Sicilian
army in the arduous undertaking before it of overthrowing the Bourbons
in the Neapolitan kingdom. Thus he gained a reinforcement of which he
knew the enormous need, for though he was willing to face
difficulties, he was not blind to them, as were many men of the
extreme party. He also prevented what would have been a step of
exceeding danger to the national cause, as it would have obliged the
Sardinian Government to break off all relations with Garibaldi and to
use force against the patriots in suppressing a movement which, if
successful, would have brought a hostile French army into Italy.

CHAPTER XV

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

1860

Garibaldi's March on Naples--The Piedmontese in Umbria and the
Marches--The Volturno--Victor Emmanuel enters Naples.

The Italian kingdom is the fruit of the alliance between the strong
monarchical principles of Piedmont and the dissolvent forces of
revolution. Whenever either one side or the other, yielding to the
influence of its individual sympathies or prejudices, failed to
recognise that thus only, by the essential logic of events, could the
unity of the country be achieved, the entire edifice was placed in
danger of falling to the ground before it was completed.

When Garibaldi stood on Cape Faro, conqueror and liberator, clothed in
a glory not that of Wellington or Moltke, but that of Arthur or Roland
or the Cid Campeador; the subject of the gossip of the Arabs in their
tents, of the wild horsemen of the Pampas, of the fishers in ice-bound
seas; a solar myth, nevertheless certified to be alive in the
nineteenth century--Cavour understood that if he were left much longer
single occupant of the field, either he would rush to disaster, which
would be fatal to Italy, or he would become so powerful that, in the
event of his being plunged, willingly or unwillingly, by the more
ardent apostles of revolution into opposition with the King of
Sardinia, the issue of th