The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-11 00:00:00

the Austrians to attempt one of these night at!
tacks, for they would have to deal with demons;

not men.

The heat for the last two days has been terrific.
It was doubly felt in this village, shut out from thsi
Mincio by the high hill on which the castle is built;
and exposed to the reflection of the parched plain
towards Verona. In the afternoon the heat reached
29 Reaumur of 97 Fahrenheit in the shade. The
slightest exertion became an intolerable burden,
and even in the coolest room you did not know how
to guard yourself against heat and flies. And what
flies ! The Egyptian fly is a modest being, and the
Wallachian fly a bashful creature in comparison
with the Lombard fly in the month of July; while
all the rest of the animated creation was over-
powered by the heat, and even the noisy cricket,
the indefatigable chanticleer of Lombard fields, was
dumb, the flies seemed to derive front it but in-
creased liveliness and petulance. As for chastising
it by well-meant wavings of your handkerchief, or
with a fly-flapper if you had such a thing, it was
out of the question, it seemed only to excite their
passion for sport. As for punishing them they
buzzed at your efforts. Even coaxing, that most
desperate of expedients, would not answer; in vain
did you expose pieces of sugar and other dainties
to satisfy their greediness. They left them to
assault your face and hands. Their tenacity was
such that I verily believe they have followed us
here from the battle field of Solferino, where they
have acquired a taste for our species.
But if you had all this misery to support when in
your room, where you were at least in the shade,
and could think how to mitigate the evil, you may
imagine what it was if you had to go out exposing
yourself to the full power of the sun, to the glare
of the road, covered with several inches of fine
white dust, and to the unmitigated fury of your
tormentors the flies. It required almost heroism to
face these combinations of evils, and tolerably good
strength to bear them. Nor did night afford relief,
not a breath of air, scarcely any difference in the
temperature, and mosquitos and other vermin in-
stead of flies.
Well, all I can say is, let every one who wishes
to keep up his illusions about the land "where the
lemon tree blooms" keep away from the Mincio and
the country about it. At any rate now it bears a
most uninviting aspect. It is all very well in autumn
and in fine times of peace, with here and there an
adventurous tourist who goes so far out of his way
as to see these hills, but it is quite a different thing
in the dog days, a short time after a sanguinary
battle with an army of more than 200,000 men with
its camp followers, and following on the heels of
another army of at least the same number as that
which occupied the country before it.
I must confess that I was weak enough to despise
the rich plains of Lombardy, overflowing with
milk, and honey, too, no doubt ; but of this I can-
not judge, detesting the very sight of it. Well,
they seemed dull and monotonous, and my soul
brightened when I got among the hills about the
Mincio and the Lake of Garda. The first impres-
sion of the blue lake and the Alps beyond ; the fine
extensive views, instead of the roads and lanes shut
in by rows of trees ; the first peep at Peschiera, one
of the angles of the quadrilatere ; the sight of so
many places renowned in the history of war ; those
mediaeval castles with which the hills bristle—all
this made such an impression upon me that I turned
my back, scoffing at the plain which we left be-
hind. I have th consolation to think I was not
alone in my delight at the hills ; it was general in
the allied armies, except, perhaps, with here and
there a fine-scented cautious Intendant or an old
Zouave, well versed in the art of foraging, who
turned their eyes longingly back towards the plain,
as the more practical children of Israel may have
done after crossing over from Egypt into the mag-
nificent mountain of Sinai.
I think by this time every one has come back to
the practical views of Zouaves and Intendants, and
these views are expressed loudly and in energetic
language by no means complimentary to the Mincio
country.
I don't: know how the Austrians fared when
they came through, but I can say from experience
that they left very little behind them. One cannot
grudge them this ; they were the first to arrive,
and had made a quick march from the Po and the
Sesia. No wonder they fell to at the first halt,
which, as you know, was in the country between
the Chiese and the Mincio. All the hay of last
year, oats, barley, poultry, bread, wine, &c., were
gone before the Allies arrived, while the new
supplies are brought up as fast as they arrive. As
soon as a division or corps comes to a place every
one rushes off to make purchases, and all that is
found disappears. Head-quarters, which arrive
last, fare the worst. So much has passed through
that the country is bare of everything. If you ex-
press your astonishment, the answer is, " The
Tedeschi have taken it all." Now and then vou
are told to wait ; that the thing does exist, .but
was hidden for fear it would be carried off by the
same Tedeschi. Thus my landlady, when I in-
stalled myself in one of the villages, begged my
pardon that the bed was not made, because she had
hidden her chest with linen in the garden, and was
going to fetch it. In the same manner as bed linen,
there are now and then other things forthcoming
after a cautious scrutiny as to your solvency. Ofcourse
it has all been hidden from fear of the Austrians,
which may be true enough, only it is not brought
out until you have established your name as good
and safe customers, and then you are made to pay
sure enough. I suppose we have to pay for the
unreceipted bills left behind by our predecessors.
The idea hitherto connected with war was, that the
army plundered the country people and lived at
their expense. The present war has certainly re-
versed a good deal this view of affairs. The means
of transport are, above all, at a fabulous price,
which is owing to the scarcity of the articles. The
people possessing horses are loudest in their com-
plaints about the requisitions of the Austrians. One
man had to take guns to Piacenza, and got for his
four horses and himself one florin, or about two shil-
lings, per diem. At the end of the journey one of his
horses had broken knees, and another had been
taken without payment for a battery. Another
man had to transport stores beyond the Mincio,
remained a fortnight, and, seeing no chance of
being let go, left cart and horse and ran home on
foot. Almost every coachman and cart-driver has
his story, if you will but listen to it.
But even if most of the stories which you hear
about the requisitions of the Austrians were exag-
gerated, the fact of this district having had the
pleasure of dispensing a forced hospitality to two
large armies in succession would be sufficient to ac-
count for the scarcity or absolute want of many
things, for the country is just as poor as it is pie-
turesque. The source of the richness of Lombardy
is the elaborate system of irrigation ; the more per-
fect this is in a district, the greater are the resources
of it. Now, the country from the plain before
Montechiaro, through the hilly district to the south
of the lake up to Verona, is on too high a level to
be accessible to the beneficial effects of this great
fructifying agent. It is entirely dependent on the
bounty of the skies, which is not over generous in
spite of the vicinity of the Alps, as you see from
the poor crops of corn and maize which you meet
with. In breadstuffs all this district scarcely pro-
duces what it wants for its population. The two
great articles of its production are wine and silk,
which you can easily recognise from the quantity
of vineyards and mulberry-tress. What the wine
is you conclude from the number of manufactories
of vinegar you see and the virulent acid smell
which strikes your nostrils in passing through a
place. The silk has been, until lately, a source of
comparative well-being, but the malady of the silk-
worm for the last few years has brought down this
prosperity considerably.
As for the Austrian Government, it is but just to
say the peasantry has nothing to complain of, for
you will be surprised to hear tnat, with the excep-
tion of the indirect taxation by the monopolies of
salt, tobacco, stamped-paper, and the Custom-house,
the peasant pays not a farthing of direct taxes.
Formerly there was a kind of a poll tax, but this
has been done away with. All the taxes are on the
shoulders of the landlord. The greater part of this
district consists of great properties, the owners of
which reside for the most part in the towns, coming
only during the autumn to spend a few weeks on
'their properties. Only very few small properties
are found which are cultivated by the labour of the
owners ; all the rest of the country people are merely
farmers and labourers. Those who have four or
more oxen belong to the former class ; they are
given, according to their means of work, a certain
amount of ground, with a house on it, which is sup-
plied by the proprietor of the soil. They have to
get the seed and provide the necessary labour, and
of the produce twa-thirds belong to them and one-
third to the landlord, who, as proprietor, has to pay
out of thin third the heavy land-tax, or, as it is
called, the "prsdiele." Those who have no cattle or
the means of procurin them are hired as yearly
labourers, They get a house supplied, a certain
number of oxen according to the extent of the land
they are to cultivate and the manual labour the
family can supply. The whole produce goes to the
landlord, who gives out of it a certain pay in money,
corn, maize, hay, i'ine, wood, &c , to his peasants,
who are called " bovara," It is scarcely necessary
to say that it is again the landlord who has to pay
the land-tax,
The cultivation of silk is an affair apart. The
landlord forms what is Galled a Societe, or society.
He gives a certain quantity of the eggs of the silk-
worm to mil family, and assigns to it a correspond-
ing number of mulberry-trees for the maintenance
of them. He supplies a house if the family has not
already csa.^ with its farm or as labourers. The pro-
duce is divided :Dually between the landlord and
his pa,rtuer. The ramiioid owner of the mulberry