The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-18 00:00:00

iirsose

GARIB3LDI'S PROGRESS.

4(Froin the Special Correspondent of the Times.)

NAPLES, SErT. 11.

!Ile four battalions of Chasseurs whom the King
..618 left behind in his flight, quartered here and
there about town, have gone asunder. Many of
the soldiers go home ; those who wish to remain at
Naples, secure from harm, do obeisance to the new
powers that be by wearing a small badge with the
Savoy cross on their breasts. The fortress of St.
Elmo followed the example of the fleet. It fired a
thundering salvo in honour of Garibaldi, hoisted
the Sardinian colours, and admitted the National
Guards within its walls. The other forts are
equally garrisoned by this same burgher militia.
Naples, in short, is now wholly in the hands of the
patriots, and Garibaldi has already pushed forward
one or two brigades, which have gained possession
of the Royal Palace of Caserta. The King shuts
up the gates of Capua. There and at Gaeta he will
abide till his enemies come en. Meanwhile Gari-
baldi, master of the seas, sends his steamers to
Paola, to Sapri, to all the small ports near which
his overtasked legions lingered behind. Every
morning we hear of a joyous landing and a trium-
phant march of these several brigades. The whole
force will soon be brought together, and the respite
allowed to the King at Gaeta will be of no long
duration.
The joy of these good Neapolitans at their
cheaply-gotten emancipation becomes daily more
noisy and frantic. Every evening the Toledo is all
alive with banners and torches, with thronged
masses of possessed people, all poking their fore-
fingers in each other's faces, and shouting out with
all the might of their Southern throats that favou-
rite cry, " Una ! Una! Una!"—conveying their de-
sire that all Italy should be made one country.
There was a grand gala night at San Carlo on
Saturday last, when the proscenium, the pit,:and
the boxes became one vast stage. You
could not tell the actors from the spectators ;
for the whole performance consisted of lo Penas
to Garibaldi, who, calm and serene in his homely
garb, had a pleasant word for all the friends
who surrounded him in her ;box, and was, in fact,
less insensible to that popular demonstration than
he might have wished to avow.
To prevent the sameness of these amusements
palling upon us, the Novena and other festivities of
St. Januarius will close all the Neapolitan theatres
for a fortnight. Driven from the playhouses, we

must make the Toledo and all the streets our stage.

The solemnity of Pie di Grotta, also on Saturday,
Was marred by a smart shower, the first we have
heard of in this country for the last four months.
Garibaldi and his officers, whose horses are still
tarrying, jaded and knocked up, at a great dis-
tance behind, repaired to the spot—the church near
the opening of the great Roman tunnel at Pausi-
lipo—in carriages ; but the National Guards were
but Neapolitans—a set of men who have a mad-
dog dread of rain-water—whose martial array was
as utterly discomposed and thrown into confusion
by the pelting element as it might, perhaps, have
been by a volley of musketry.
One of our greatest objects of interest is now
the easily-won Castle St. Elmo. The whole popu-
lation of Naples, male and female, seem bent on
forming a pilgrimage to that shrine of their patriot
martyrs, and yesterday I went up myself with a
party of friends. We first walked through St.
Martin's marble Church and Monastery, where our
Garibaldian red-shirts, I dare say, boded little good
to the white-cowled monks, who gazed at us as we
passed, tall, stately, and motionless, so that we at
first mistook them for statues ;—good Carthusian
monks doing penance in a marble paradise, bound
by vow to perpetual silence, and affecting an easy
unconcerned air, though in their heart of hearts
probably trembling not a little for the visible and
invisible treasures of which their sanctuary has
been time out of mind the repository.
From the marble cells of the monks to the iron
dungeons of the victims of Castle St. Elmo the tran-
sition is but short, but the contrast is appalling.
The stone steps wind down six floors, and at every
floor room was made for about half a score of
victims. Some of the miserable cells had windows ;
but, as the view from the hill over the loveliest
panorama of land and sea would have been too great
a solace to the lonely captive, the window was lat-
ticed over by thick wooden bars, not intended to
prevent escape—for from that height only a bird
could attempt to—but simply to rob the poor recluse
of the distant ♦iew of his familiar scenes. In the
lowest floor there is no window to the dungeons—
only a little wicket in the door opening outwardly
for the gaoler to communicate with the prisoner if
he has a mind. The wicket would be opened one
moment in the morning to let in a little bread and
water; then the wicket would fall to, and for 24
hours all would be darkness inside.
I do not like to witness horrors, much less to
dwell upon them, else I could tell you of the loop-
holes we were shown, through which the sentries
could shoot the prisoners in their cells and their
beds. I could repeat the instances of wholesale
executions of Swiss and Sicilian mutineers of which
St. Elmo has been the theatre, and of which the
world never knew anything. The caitiffs who were
but yesterday in the King's pay are eager to pro-
mulgate abroad the infamy of his doings ; and T have
no doubt St. Elmo will soon become the subject of
books or pamphlets yielding but little in interest to
the stories of La Bastille, of which it will soon share
the fate.
Yes, the good people of Naples are bent upon
demolishing St. Elmo, and are only awaiting the
Dictator's bidding to lay hand to the work. A

tough job they will find it, I am sure. M I was

walking yesterday along the upper battlements the
impatient citizens were already busy pulling back
the huge brass guns, each of which was most offen-
sively pointed at some of the most densely crowded
quarters of the town, and turning their muzzles
inward. What a fortress that was, and what a
protection to the city ! It was no bad emblem of
the whole sea and land might of the Bourbon—
worse than useless against foreign aggression,
wholly and exclusively directed to crush internal
commotion.

There are not many men who could venture to
say what Garibaldi's present intentions may be.
Garibaldi is apt to talk wildly, though he is sure to
aat wisely. He must bring the Neapolitan enter-
prise to an end, and that will give him employment
for a week or two ; thee, if either Lamoriciere
marches forward to the rescue of the Bourbon, or
the Bourbon with his troops takes refuge in any
part of the Papal territory, the war will necessarily
be carried into that ground where Garibaldi himself
would wish to pursue it. Our Dictator here has been
frightening people out of their wits by too openly
revealing his designs upon Rome and Venice. He
must have the whole of Italy, and it was supposed
his reluctance to the immediate annexation of these
Southern kingdoms to Piedmont arose from a fear
lest his action for the future might be hampered by
his allegiance to the Government of King Victor
Emmanuel. I always thought, however, that the
alleged ill-will between Cavour and Garibaldi, if not
alto ether a feint, was at any rate in a great measure
affected. We have this day ample confirmation of
all my surmises, Two battalions of Bersacrlieri—
genuine Pi
edmontese Bersaglieri— have landed from
the Sardinian men-of-war, and taken possession of
the Darsena. Telegraphic orders have been sent
for two more Piedmontese regiments to garrison the
Neapolitan forts. By taking the Neapolitan marine
under its command, and occupy' -
mg the strongholds,
dockyards, and arsenals about this place, the Sar-
dinian Ooverument commits itself more openly to
the annexation of these kingdoms than it ever dared
to do in the case of Tw4cany or Romagna last year.
And all these measures are taken
not only with the
consent but by the express desire or Garibaldi, who
certainly exhibits no apprehension that the King's
Government will interfere with his vast
under-
takings.
Garibaldi, who appointed no Minister for Foreign
Affairs, deemed it, however, expedient, upon the
'lineation of General Bertani, to send forth as his
Ambassadors from Naples Carlo Cattaneo to London,
Camillo cat,
acctoto, Marquis of Bella, to Paris, and
Leopardi to T • unn. The idea of sending Cattaneo,
an untravelled Milanese, who knows nothing
about Naples, and though a scholar,
prActical person in all Kaman affairs, seems to tho