The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-30 00:00:00

GARIBALDI IN CA7AIVIA.

(From the Correspondent of the Daily News..)

CATANIA, AUG. 19.

As an eye-witness of one of Garibaldi's most mi-
raculous feats, I shall endeavour to give you a truth-
ful account of the events of the last three days.
We left Catania on the 16th, about 2 o'clock p.m.,
without waiting for the arrival of one of our com-
panions, the old revolutionary General Fabrizzi,
now member of the Italian Parliament, who had
remained at Messina and was to join us by the
evening boat. We saw, by the proximity in which
the volunteers stood to the regulars, that an en-
counter was most probable; which, according to our
views, would have thrown the brand of civil war
into the fair land. We hastened, therefore, to
Garibaldi, in the faint hope that our presence might
be of some use under such critical circumstances.
A heavy thunderstorm overtook us in the vicinity
of Paterno, which besides showing us Etna in the
most splendid illumination by mighty lightning
flashes, served also to cool the sultry heat of the
day ; but our coachman grew somewhat uneasy,
as we had to pass a mountain stream, which might
have become unfordable. We met soon after a half
battalion of the 4th, the same which had arrived with
us in the steamboat from Messina. The troops were
evidently hastening to reinforce the position of
Aderno, where the way of the volunteers to Catania
was to be stopped until three other columns, moving
from Palermo, Messina, and Girgenti, could ap-
proach, and by surrounding Garibaldi from every
side force him to desist from his enterprise. We
arrived after sunset at Aderno, where General
Arborio Mella had fixed his headquarters. Our
horses required some rest and food, and we had to
stop for an hour. Having been acquainted with
the colonel of the 4th, formerly one of Garibaldi's
lieutenants in the campaign of Naples, I was glad
to meet him, just on his return from visiting the
outposts. He told me that he was in a most dis-
agreeable position, having orders to stop his late
general's advance at any risk. " Twice already,"
he said, " I have sacrificed an established position
to my principles. I resigned my rank in the
Turkish army in order to take part in the war of
1859, and in the following year I gave up my
position in the Italian service to join Garibaldi. I
cannot do it again. I have a family to care for.
Though a foreigner, I have been treated well by
the Italian Government. Ido not even see how,
in the present case, the principle of liberty is
affected. Garibaldi claims the right of declaring
war, which belongs to the King; he claims to ex-
press the national feeling, which has no other legal
representative but Parliament ; he does not obey
the King's proclamation. I have orders to attack
him if he forces the passage, and, by God ! I shall
do it. I can't help it ; I can't give up an honour-
able position for his whims." I told the colonel
that we were proceeding to the General, and still
hoped that an encounter might be avoided. He said
he could not believe it ; he knew him too well.
Garibaldi never capitulates ; he is not the man to
surrender. " But tell him," he continued, " that
General Rocatelli's forces are already at Piazza on
his right ; that General Boy I must by this day be
at Leon Forte, in his rear ; we bar his passage in
front ; he cannot extricate himself from the net
around him ; let him, at the eleventh hour, do with
a good grace what in twenty-four hours he will be
forced to do. God bless you on your errand." I
asked him whether he was as sure of his brother
officers, and of the privates, as of himself; and he
replied that the spirit of the regiment was excellent,
they would if commanded, point their bayonets
against their own fathers. That was not exactly
true. We heard at our return that General Mella
had, a few hours before our arrival at Aderno, ad-
dressed the assembled officers, telling them that the
enemy was in front, an attack imminent, and the
moment approaching when to the traditions of the
regiment they might add a new glory. "We shall
destroy the enemy," he said, " and punish those cri-
minals who rise in rebellion against the King and
the law." Some of the officers grew pale, all were,
seized with the deepest emotion; they did not find the
words of the general in keeping with the terrible
necessity of beginning a civil war by attacking Gari-
baldi, the greatest hero of Italy,the liberator of Sicily.
Some of the officers were Sicilians and Neapolitans
by birth, others had served under him ; there was,
perhaps, not one who did not admire the defender of
Rome, the hero of Varese, the man who had given
two kingdoms to Victor Emmanuel. The general
struck by this emotion, said at once he saw that
some of the officers seemed unwilling to do their
duty. He gave them half an hour's time to give
their decision. Whoever hesitated after that was
to be placed before a court-martial. Twenty-eight
officers resigned within the half-hour, and were
sent back to Catania.

Our horses fed, we proceeded on our journey, and
soon arrived at a watch-post, where we inquired
whether the river could be forded. The sergeant
informed us he had just waded through it in visit-
ing the outposts ;it was scarcely knee-deep. Hav-
ing passed the river we were rather astonished not
to be stopped by these outposts, but we did not guess
as yet that the whole picket had deserted, with bag
and baggage, and was on the way to Garibaldi.
About two in the morning we arrived at Regalbutto
and drove right to head-quarters. The noise of the
wheels had been heard by Garibaldi, and he wished
to see us one by one. Whilst Mordini was closeted
with him we waited in a great saloon, where 20
officers lay on the bare floor fast asleep. We woke
some of them. They were all anxious to know the
state of things on the Italian continent, and prin-
cipally whether Garibaldi's enterprise met really
with the national aspirations. Since the day of
the royal proclamation they had in their march
through the mountains seldom met with an Italian
paper, whilst the Sicilian papers, with their provin-
cial character, afforded them no information. They
told us that in the eastern province, from Caltani-
setta downwards, the boroughs were less enthusi-
astic, people thronged to see Garibaldi rather from
curiosity than from fellow-feeling, whilst the muni-
cipal authorities were evidently hostile, making dif-
ficulties about provisions, since they had received
orders from the governors to act in this way, and
so constrain Garibaldi either to take by force what
he required, and thus to frighten the country, or to
disgust the volunteers by bad fare and unnecessary
delays. Regalbutto especially was apathetic beyond
expectation. Garibaldi's magnetic fascination had
of course elicited cheers, but the middle and upper
class kept back, and the mayor and municipality
were sullen, and unwilling to furnish bread and
meat.

We found the General more cheerful than our
friends of the staff, and when we insisted on the
danger of a civil war, he said, "I shall avoid it as
far as poosible ; but if they touch our swords we
shall not give them up. I know the nation is with
me, but if I have been mistaken about their feelings,
we will go to America." He spoke much about in-
different things, expressed his great satisfaction at
seeing us, and then dismissed us to give orders
and to take a bath. About four o'clock in the morn-
ing he came out of his room on the terrace, where
his staff was bustling, and invited us to accompany
him on his march, since he had given order to leave
all the carriages behind. They were to follow on
the high road only in a couple of hours, when their
movements, indicating the direction he took, could
no longer be of any danger to the execution of his
plan. At five o'clock we set out. Mounted on a
white mule, the General himself took the lead, fol-
lowed by his staff, badly mounted on horses and
mules, hired in the borough. Then came about 30
Guides, light-footed young men, with an elastic
step, evidently the crack company of the volunteers,
but even these carried common muskets instead of
; some of them had not even a red shirt or
good shoes. We took our place among them with
the Younger officers of the staff who had been unable
to get mounted at Regalbutto either for love or
money. Over a rugged mountain path just under
the west of the height, we marched between vine-
yards and olive plantations, through hedges of
cactus and the Indip., fig, which reaches here the
height of trees, the edge of the fat leaves crowned
by that luscious fruit, whose spines on the peel so
easily wound those who do not know how to deal
with them. The morning was uncommonly fine,
no haze obstructed the view over the different moun-
tain chains which rose iu succession one above the