The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-15 00:00:00

CASTROVILLARI, SAME DAY, 11 O'CLOCK, P.M.

I was sorely afraid to be left behind' and unable to follow
Garibaldi in his hurried progress, but till now I have been
lucky enough to have it in my power to precede him. At
Tarsai, as I already informed you, the General dismissed
most of his staff, and travelled with Generals Cosenz and
Sistori, Trecchi, and a few other officers. They had no
room for me in their carriage, and I was left to my own
resources. By great good fortune I fell in with Garibaldi's
Englishman, who also travels on his own hook, and by hiring
donkeys, and leaving the General to his usual siesta, we made
such good speed that we came within three miles of Castro-
villari before the General made his appearance. We had
half killed our vetture, as mules and donkeys are called in
this country, and were therefore most happy to find, out
of the many fine carriages belonging to the notables of the
town who had come to greet the Liberator, that of a cour-
teous Marchese, who drove us into town fully one hour
before the frantic shouts of the multitude and the noise of
the nzortaletti announced the arrival of the Chief. We par-
to -k at the Intendente's palace of a splendid supper with
Garibaldi's officers; but the Ueneral pleaded fatigue, and
retired as soon as the unavoidable ceremonies of his recep-
tion were over.

LAGONEGRO, IN BASILICATA,
SEPT. 2)). O'CLOCK, A.M.
We travel at such breathless speed, and with so much
discomfort, that we have hardly leisure to look at the often
smiling, sometimes dreary, but always grand scenery of
the country we are traversing. By dint of our friends'
interest, notwithstanding the horses required for the Gene-
ral's service, we were able, Colonel Peard and I,
to post before Garibaldi, keeping ono hour or more
in advance of him. From Castrovillari we toiled up a
lofty, winding, rugged mountain pass, the summit of which
marks the boundary between the province of Calabria Citra
and that of Basilicata. This and the many other narrow
gorges we have left behind render these districts of Southern
Italy almost impracticable for an army ; the road running
along the whole of Calabria is as bad as it can be, and it is
the only road. By undertaking the defence of all these de-
files, one after the other, a mere handful of determined
warriors could stay the progress of a vastly superior force
for rsonths and months. The Neapolitans, however, made
no attempt to hinder us, and now wo find all these impor-
tant points in the hands of the armed population, enliven-
ing the scene wherever we pass with music and shows and
triumphant cheers. On the summit above Moreno and on
the way to Rotondo, we drove under a gaudy arch made of
tricolour flags, and found there bands of thousands of fierce
mountaineers, from whose chiefs we learnt that the Neapo-
litans had collected a force of 12,000 or 16,000 men about
Salerno, with a strong vanguard at Eboli. They, how-
ever, assured us that in the province of Basilicata no less
than 30,000 of the people were in arms, and that in the
principality of Solerno itself the revolution was triumphant
as far as Sala, where a Provisional Government and aPro-
Dictator had been appointed; and be it observed that these
people did not wait for Garibaldi's approach, before they
stirred. Oa the very day on which Missori, with 250 men,

landed at Bagnara— the 19th of August—Castrovillari set
up the tricolour standard; and on the previous day a riot
between the people of Potenza, the capital of Basilicata, and
50 mounted gendarmes stationed among them, a riot in
which there were several killed and wounded on either side,
had terminated with the victory of the patriots, who imme-
diately proceeded to the emancipation and military and
political organisation of the whole province. These people,
in short, are determined not to be behindhand with the
Calabrians, or with the Albanian colonies in the Southern
provinces, who are reckoned among the fiercest people in
the whole kingdom, and who, in their zeal, vowed to Gari-
baldi that an " Albanian battalion would have the honour to
be the first to enter Naples." The " Basilisks," as the
Basilicata people love to style themselves, aro willing to dis-
pute this honour, and those of the principality of Salerno,
who are nearer to the scene of war, evince no less ardour.
Altogether, the attitude of all these people greatly surprises
and amazes us. It is, indeed, the case of furor arms
stria, and there has been no lack of causes to account for
this universal excitement of men's passions. Almost any
man we meet, any of the hosts who bestow so much atten-
tion, kas a tale of soma deed of oppression of which him-
self or some of his friends has been the victim. This priest
has been 10 years in the galleys; the son of that venerable
old man, an exile since 1813, is expected to march through
in one of Garibaldi's legions, in which he has enlisted.
What a long Iliad of wholesale proscriptions, arrests,
banishments, barbarous punishments, vexatious surveillance
of the police, ill •usage at the hands of civil and military
authorities, what series of deeds of iniquity, what instances
of atrocious abuse of power come into light It was on this
fearful, crushing work that the stolid Bourbon relied for the
stability of his power. The wonder is, not that such a
power should break in his hand like a frail reed, but that
in the country in which almost all were sufferers not a
voice should be raised for revenge. Tho people rejoice in
the present, and are willing to give the past to oblivion.
The instruments of their oppressor's ferocity are, at any
rate, allowed to go by unmolested. Fro in Reggio to Cosenza,
and again from Cosenza to this place, we never came to a
lonely spot on the road whero wo had not the company of
some of the poor disbanded Royal soldiers. It is a sad,
humbling, harassing sight. From the moment they yielded
up their arms they should never have wielded, Neapolitan
soldiers and officers all moved off on their way homewards.
It is the first instance, I believe, in history, in which a con-
quering and a vanquished army were seen marching side by
side, and almost promiscuously, without any hostile feelings,
without any wish to harm, but also without the power to help
each other. The sufferings of the dispersed Neapolitans are
dreadful to behold, and at every step, as their numbers
increase, must rise in intensity. We must have passed
no less than 25,000 of them in our progress. As they
laid down their muskets they, every man, began
tramping. Footsore, and many of them shoeless,

almost naked some of them—for they sell all available gar-
ments—they creep along, parched, burnt, starved; they
lie down, they care not whet e, whenever fatigue overcomes
them, by the side of marshy grounds, from which they can
hardly hope to rise on the morrow without a fever. Few
ever pass without begging lamentations, or without that
peculiar gesture of the thumb and forefinger before the
mouth, indicative of hunger in the dumb Lazzaroni lan-
guage. They apply to the syndics and other municipal
authorities at the different communes on the road ; but
towns and villages are often at 10 or 15 miles distance from
One another; they ail) Qttly up on, the hilly away from