The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-11 00:00:00

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THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 11, 1866.

THE WELLINGTON, ST. JAMES'S-STREET
(Entrance 169, Piccadilly).
Set Dinners as usual. The carte varied, choice, and mode-
rate. Turtle, thick and clear, al.vays ready.
The Billiard Rooms now conducted by J. Roberts, the
champion.
hipp rs until One a.m.
Elegant Saloon Dining (teems for Ladies.

A UGUST and SEPTEMBER SHOOTING
JACKET S, in various mixed colours, of
Cheviot Wool Cloth, light, cool, and as strong as linen,
resisting damp, and more adapted to this variable climate
than any other fabric, the cost of each being TWENTY-
FIVE SHILLINGS, with the new Cartridge Pockets.

THE AUSTRIAN ARMY.

(Front the Times Special Correspoadent)
VERONA, Aug. 6.

H. J. and D. NICOLL, COURT TAILORS.
LONDON- -114 to 120, Regent-street, and 22, Cornbill.
MANCHESTER-10, Mosley-street.
LIVERPOOL-50, Bold-street.

In my last letter I related some particulars of an
excursion to the outposts of the Austrian army
before Pergine, in the Val Saguna, about three and
a half miles from Trent; but as all the world except
Gen. Kuhn and his Staff were in a torpid state in
the City of the Council, I started next day for
Verona to see how things were going on there, and
to visit the field of Custozza. The single train which
runs from Botzen to Verona daily is exclusively em-
ployed on military service, and no one can proceed
to or fro without a pass. General Kuhn was good
enough to forward the proper document—a " pas-
sirschein"—to be shown at headquarters, Verona ;
and, in company with two English officers who were
travelling to observe the rival armies in the field, I
started by the train from Trent at 5 o'clock on the
afternoon of the 4th August. We found Gen. Kuhn
and some members of his Staff at the station ; and,
indeed, there is little done in Trent which that
keen-eyed commander does not inspect. What a
man he is for loopholes ! If in former communica-
tions I have ever appeared to censure the Austrians
for neglecting precautions, it is but just to say Kuhn
-atones for all deficiencies. He has a mania for loop-
holes. I do not see how a single creature from Trent
to the end of the valley of the Adige can escape
cold, neuralgia, and rheumatism, for man, woman,
and child must have at least one loophole open night
and day in the sitting-room or bedroom, and even
in church they are not safe from draughts. All the
villages, all the towns, are perforated profusely, and
every man's house, detached though it be and far
apart from any neighbour—is his castle in a sense
very different from that intended by the lawyers.
Mines are being laid, rocks blasted, roads com-
manded, batteries thrown up on all sides of the city
with immense energy. As the General was walking
about the station he said naively, in reply to a re-
mark that he had not suspended his preparations on
account of the peace, " The peace ! I know nothing
about it. I have seen something in newspapers about
peace being likely when the armistice is over, but I
have not had any official communication on the sub-
ject."

The valley of the Adige was simmering in the heat
of an August afternoon, and our carriage was filled
with more than its legitimate number, but as they
all wore uniforms, and we were only there on suffer-
ance, we could only pant and bear it. There were
not a dozen civilians in the train. The station of
Trent is under guard, with fixed bayonets. Every
station on the way to Verona is the centre of a detach-
ment which has outposts high in air among the moun-
tains overhead, and one can readily understand the
ennui of an officer quartered on a bed of gneiss or
granite 6,000 feet up there in a time of truce, cut off
from letters, papers, and books for days together,
stinted in food, and destitute of the smallest luxury.
A Vienna dandy must have great internal resources
if he does not feel a little Weary now and then in the
course of the week, and particularly as there is small
chance of active service afterwards. Our fellow-
passengers were not in bad spirits, and one lively
adjutant of a Jager battalion, who had been shot
through the right arm, kept up the good-humour of
his comrades by many anecdotes of the Italian cam-
paign, and amused even the sufferer from a more
recent wound, whose wrist and hand were badly in-
jured by a bullet. Some got out and others got in
along the line, and a British subaltern would have
been taken much aback had he been treated to the
embraces exchanged by the officers on parting or
meeting. Indeed, Kuhn, rugged and martial as he is,
gave two sounding smacks to a general whom he saw
off at Trent, such as no English Achilles ever be-
stowed on his dearest Patroclus, though it is saidthe
great Duke had to suffer a goof deal in that way
from enthusiastic allies. All the world knows the
valley of the Adige from Trent to Verona, and would
have seen little change in it. The ruined castles still
keep watch and ward over glen and pass. Churches
(all wellventilated by General Kuhn) on lofty crags
attest the devotion of Tyrolese congregations—
villages, speckling the mountain sides with white
patches, seem to have clambered out of the valley
to escape floods and tax-gatherers, and monasteries
and religious houses close at hand are ready to glean
their harvest of souls undisturbed by the noise of
civilised life among the ravens and lammergeiers. Far
and near, however, they are all open to the breezes
of Heaven, which are generally many and strong in
these parts, for the inevitable loophole has been
among them and covered their white faces with an
eruption of black specks. Here, as all over Austria,
the land is seamed with white, for soldiers are visible
at all the important places, and commerce and war
differ in their ideas as to what constitutes import-
ance,
so that in the Tyrol soldiers are to be found
in very unlooked-for places guarding what com-
merce would consider very uninteresting and insig-
nificant positions.
Notwithstanding the contrast between rifled guns
and cross-bows, the ancient engineers were influ-
enced in the selection of sites for their works by
very similar considerations to those which determine
the choice of the moderns, and if you see the ruins
of an old fortification in a pass in the Tyrol you
may be pretty sure the Austrians are not far off
to-day. Near Negliany, where the remains of a
magnificent castle show where some chiefs once took
toll of pilgrims and merchants on their way between
the great Italian cities of the plains and the busy
marts of mediaeval Germany, there are seated three
modern fortresses. One is a casemated work in a
gorge, through which the Adige flow s in a deep con-
tracted stream. Another, high on the rocks above,
sweeps road and river, and crosses its fire with that
of a third perched on a crag at the opposite side,
and all three seemed to watch the traveller with
their dull black eyes till it has been borne away
through the fast receding and diminishing Alps,
and handed over to the care of the redoubts and
bastions on the plain around Verona. It was
almost night before the train stopped at the Porta
Nuova, outside the gates of Verona. Through the
falling shade, long before we reached the bridge
over the Adige above the city, the dark outlines of
casemated works and of low redoubts could be seen
all around above the level of the scrubby mulberry
trees and fields of Indian corn which render the
plain of Lombardy so monotonous and tiresome to
the traveller and so troublesome to the soldier.
Some of the villages were deserted, but in the open
spaces troops could be seen on parade, and the pa-
rapets were well-manned with soldiers looking at
the train as the great sensation of the day. Since
my last visit to Verona the number of outworks has
been increased, and they seem now to be placed on
two lines outside the regular fortifications of the
city. They are detached, but so close together that
nothing living could pass between their fire, and the
whole country is so level that not a man could come
within range of the guns unobserved. The pro-
cesses of agriculture have tended to increase the
strength of the position created by the labours of the
engineer, for the ground has been cleared of stones,
which are piled up in wall-like lines all over the
country, and, as they are small and round, like 31b
shot, a ball or shell striking one of the heaps would
scatter it like grape or canister. Much as fortified
places have fallen into disrepute, the most daring
General would not like to attack Verona, and few
places -would offer greater obstacles to the progress
or a regular siege, provided all the works
with
be
fully manned, and that they are armed the
best modern artillery. I believe there al! 33 re -
doubts and regular works around Verona in addi-
tion to field fortifications.
On entering the city by the Porta Nuova, inside
the dry ditch, we were stopped by the guard and
asked for our passports, but the signature and offi-
cial seal of the Commander of the Tyrol were an
all-sufficing " Open Sesame" to the city of the Ca-
pulets and Montagues.
An Austrian band was still playing in the Place

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