Chapter XX: Part 20

The force at Colonel Durand’s disposal consisted of three regiments of Kashmir Imperial Service troops, 188 men of the 5th Gurkha regiment, about thirty men of the Agency bodyguard, two guns of the Hazara mountain battery, and 160 irregulars from the mountains of Puneal--in all about 2,000 men. Of these 1,000 men were left to garrison the forts and to guard our long line of communication. The field force, therefore, numbered roughly 1,000 men, of whom more than 700 were untried sepoys of the Kashmir regiments (Dogras and Gurkhas), and quite untrained irregulars. Only thirteen British officers were with the field force. To Mr. Spedding, C.E., and his staff of six civilians, was entrusted the duty of opening out a road for the column: these civilians were on the roster, and had under them 200 Pathan navvies, who were armed with Snider carbines, and took part in the fighting.

Despite the rigour of the climate in these highlands, it was decided to prosecute the campaign in mid-winter, for it is only at that season that Hunza can be invaded with any hope of success. The tribesmen have purposely left the approaches to their country as difficult as possible. The awful gorges of the lower Hunza valley afford position after position that would be impregnable if properly held. A very narrow track, trying to the nerves of any but cragsman, was then the one route by which the valley could be ascended in the summer months; for at that season the torrent, swollen by the snows melting on the mountains, rages deep and unfordable, filling the bottom of the ravines from the precipices on one side to those on the other, so that one has no choice but to follow the dangerous path high up the hillside, in places crossing the precipices by frail scaffoldings of wood which a single man could in a moment dislodge and send tumbling into the torrent below, leaving impassable walls of rock to face the invader. But in the winter the difficulties are much lessened. The intense frost silences all the tributary streams, the Hunza torrent shrinks considerably in volume, is generally fordable, and it is possible in most parts of the valley to follow the dried margin of the river bed instead of scaling the precipices above.

SKETCH MAP
TO ILLUSTRATE THE
HUNZA NAGAR CAMPAIGN.]

Mr. Spedding and his men quickly opened out a road, just practicable for a mule battery, to Chalt, the last Kashmir fort in the valley. Here the field force collected, and all being ready, we crossed the river on December 1st, and having formed a zereba, encamped for the night in the enemy’s territory. The tribesmen were known to have gathered in force ten miles higher up the valley at a point where several large forts defended a naturally very strong position. It was Colonel Durand’s intention to make an immediate attack on the most important and the nearest to us of these forts--that of Nilt.

Accordingly, at daybreak on December 2nd, our force advanced; but it was not until midday that we reached our destination, for our road lay across very difficult ground, and at some precipitous places the enemy had broken away the track, so that the column had to halt while Spedding’s Pathans with pick, shovel, and gunpowder cleared the way. The enemy offered no opposition, and, indeed, we saw no signs of them until we had turned a rocky spur of the mountain side, when we suddenly beheld, right in front of us and only two hundred yards or so distant, the grey fortress of Nilt, with the quaint triangular flags of the Hunzas waving on its walls.

The illustration (on p. 297) will render clear the following description of the enemy’s position at what the tribesmen have for centuries considered to be the impregnable gateway of their country. On the right and left are the great gorges of Nilt and Maiun, which pour their tributary waters into the Hunza river. At the mouth of the Nilt gorge stands the fortress of Nilt, while on the cultivated terraces beyond the two gorges are the large fortresses of Thol and Maiun and several smaller forts. The two gorges descend from the glaciers and snowfields of mighty mountains whose peaks attain a height of 25,000 feet. The cliffs that fronted us on the opposite slopes of both gorges are inaccessible in most parts, and were lined at their summits from the edge of the glaciers high above down to the river bed with _sangas_, or stone breastworks, filled with the enemy’s marksmen ever ready to roll down avalanches of rocks on any foe that should attempt the scaling. The high cliffs also that fell from the cultivated terraces on either side forming the river banks were lined with _sangas_ for several miles up the valley, so that an attempt to turn this formidable position by an advance up the river bed would be met by a withering fire on either flank. We were confronted, in short, by a line of defence which extended from the glaciers on one side to those on the other, held by some 4,000 determined men.

Our first object was to capture Nilt fort, the only one of the enemy’s defences which was on our side of the tributary gorges. Our troops had by no means an easy task before them. As the Hunzas and Nagars, when not united to raid on foreign soil or to repel an invader, used frequently to wage war on each other, all their villages are strongly fortified. Nilt consists of a congregation of stone houses, some of which are two or three storeys in height, all strongly built, and having flat roofs of large stones so well put together that our shells produced no effect on them. These houses are built close together, and often open out one into another, while a labyrinth of very narrow alleys intersects this human rabbit-warren. The town is enclosed by a massive stone wall nearly twenty feet in height and twelve feet in breadth, loopholed for musketry, with towers at intervals. This wall is surrounded by another loopholed wall eight feet in height, distant some six yards from the first wall. This outer wall, where it does not hang over the precipice, has a deep trench outside it, at the bottom of which the enemy had placed a strong abatis of branches lashed together, and, lastly, another abatis lined the outer edge of the trench.

As soon as we turned the spur of the mountain the Hunzas opened fire upon us from their loopholes. Our troops deployed on to the flat terrace of irrigated fields and returned the fire. The 5th Gurkhas, who led the attack, made short rushes, section after section, availing themselves of the cover afforded by the low walls that divided the fields, and directed a brisk fire on the loopholes of the fort at 100 yards range. The Punialis and the men of the 20th Punjab Infantry scaled the steep mountain spur above the fort to the ridge on which we afterwards had our “ridge picket” (_see_ illustration on p. 297), and fired down into the centre of the fort. The two seven-pounders took up a position about 150 yards from the fort, and opened fire upon it with shrapnel and shot, which appeared to produce no effect on the strong walls.

The action continued thus for about an hour. The loopholes of the fort offered but small targets to our riflemen, and the losses of the enemy must have been slight. On the other hand, our own men began to drop pretty fast, and it was soon obvious that the enemy’s marksmen were picking off the British officers, most of whom had narrow escapes. Colonel Durand himself was severely wounded in the groin, and the command devolved on Captain Bradshaw, 35th Bengal Infantry. The loopholes of Nilt were luckily but few in number, or our losses would have been very severe.

Just before he was wounded Colonel Durand ordered that an attempt should be made to blow up the main gate of the fort, and take the place by assault. The story of how this was carried out should be one to stir the blood of Englishmen, for few so gallant deeds have been recorded even in the glorious annals of our Indian warfare. Under cover of a very heavy fire opened upon the loopholes of the fort by the rest of the force the storming party of one hundred men of the 5th Gurkhas, led by Lieutenants Boisragon and Badcock, and accompanied by Captain Aylmer (on whom, as our engineer officer, fell the duty of blowing up the gate), made a rush on the outer abatis. Through this the kukris of the Gurkhas quickly clove a narrow opening, and then the three officers, followed by their men, leapt into the trench and began to cut their way through the other abatis at the bottom. The officers, with some half-a-dozen men at their heels, scrambled through first, climbed the side of the trench, and found themselves before the outer wall. They ran along it till they came to a small gate, through which they had little difficulty in hacking their way. Passing through this they found themselves between the two walls, and exposed to the fire from the lower loopholes of the main wall, which could not be silenced by the covering party. Turning to the right they followed the main wall till they came to a large and strongly-built wooden gate flanked by two towers. To cut through this gate, which had been barricaded within with a wall of stones, was impossible, so Captain Aylmer, accompanied by his Pathan orderly and a Gurkha sepoy, ran up to the foot of the gate, and as rapidly as possible made his preparations to blow it up, the enemy all the while firing at him through the loopholes of the towers and gate, and throwing large stones over the parapets upon him. His companions protected him as far as they could by firing into the loopholes at the range of a few feet, the officers using their revolvers. That a single man of this gallant handful escaped death is indeed marvellous.

Captain Aylmer, stooping down, removed some stones from under the foot of the gate, inserted his slabs of guncotton, packed them with stones, and ignited the fuse. While he was doing this he was shot through the leg from a loophole so near to him that his clothes and flesh were burnt; and of the two men who were in the gateway with him the Gurkha was shot dead, and the Pathan orderly was severely wounded in the head. Captain Aylmer and the orderly then crawled along the foot of the wall to a safe distance, and awaited the explosion. The given time elapsed, and there was no sound. It was obvious that the fuse had failed. So Captain Aylmer, wounded as he was, once more returned to an almost certain death, in order to complete his task. He cut the fuse with his knife, readjusted it, lit a match after several attempts, for the wind was strong, reignited the fuse, and again withdrew to safe shelter. This time while at work in the gateway he received a second wound. His hand and arm were very badly crushed by a large stone that was thrown at him over the walls.

This time, happily, the fuse did its work. There was a loud explosion; the stones came toppling down from the shaking walls, and it was seen that the gate and the barricade had been blown in. Then, even before the cloud of smoke and dust had cleared, the three British officers--for Captain Aylmer was ready for the fight, indomitable as ever, though streaming with blood from his wounds--and the five surviving sepoys rushed through the breach, and were within the fort. Here they at once engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with the bravest of the enemy who flocked down the alleys leading to the gate. This handful of men, standing close together in this narrow place, resolutely held the position they had gained against the whole Hunza garrison. They gave a very good account of themselves, and killed a number of the enemy with bullet and cold steel: Lieutenant Badcock, with his revolver, shot the commander himself, Mahomet Shah, Wazir of Nagar. But the odds against them were too overwhelming: two more of the sepoys were soon killed, and nearly all were wounded. Captain Aylmer was now wounded for yet a third time, being shot through the arm with a jezail, while Lieutenant Badcock was severely wounded in the shoulder. It was evident that not one of the little party at the gateway would be left alive unless support came up quickly. They had thus been fighting for about a quarter of an hour, when Lieutenant Boisragon volunteered to go out and find his men, thus exposing himself both to the fire of the enemy and that of the covering party. He got through safely, and was very soon back in the fort at the head of a number of Gurkhas, eager to avenge their fallen comrades. They fought, as is their wont, like little demons with their deadly kukris. The tribesmen defended themselves with desperate valour, but they could not long withstand the fierce attack of the Gurkhas, who at last drove them back with great loss, and hunted them panic-stricken through the labyrinth of alleys into the surrounding gorges.

That the Gurkhas had not more quickly followed their officers and six comrades to the gateway was not due to any unreadiness on their part, for Gurkhas are never backward in a fight. It seems that after they had cut through the abatis and crossed the trench they were unable to see which way their officers had gone before them, and turning to the left, instead of to the right, had missed the gateway, and had been checked by a great abatis which extended from the wall to the brink of the precipice.

The storming of Nilt only cost our force six men killed and twenty-seven wounded. The enemy left about a hundred dead behind them in the alleys of the fort, and many were shot down while escaping to their defences beyond the gorge. Captain Aylmer and Lieutenant Boisragon were both decorated with the Victoria Cross in recognition of their gallantry on this day, and Lieutenant Badcock, who was also recommended for a V.C., received the Distinguished Service Order.

Thus fell Nilt Fort; but its capture was only the first step towards the subjugation of the Hunza-Nagars. The real strength of their position lay before us, and the enemy, not in the least disheartened by their defeat, prepared to make a resolute stand along their line of defence beyond the two gorges. They omitted no precaution: not only did they break away all the roads across the ravines, but, taking advantage of the hard frost, they turned the irrigation canals over the river cliffs where they were assailable, and so formed smooth ramparts of ice to oppose us.

For eighteen days we vainly endeavoured to turn this formidable position. On December 3rd an attempt was made to repair the road and push across the Nilt gorge; but no sooner did our men appear in the open than they were driven back by a volley from the _sangas_ opposite, which killed three men and wounded six others, among the latter being Lieutenant Gorton. We now had five of our officers _hors de combat_, and in all forty men killed or wounded. Several reconnaissances were made by day and by night, to find out a weak spot in the enemy’s line of defence. Once a party explored the river bed for some distance, and found that it was obstructed by barricades that ran across the beach: a heavy fire from either bank compelled this patrol to beat a hasty retreat. It was quite evident that an attempt to advance that way would mean the annihilation of our force. On the night of December 8th another futile endeavour was made to force the mouth of the Nilt gorge. On one dark night a small party that had crossed the river to surprise Maiun was discovered and repulsed. We even attempted to find a way across the glaciers at the head of the gorge, but were frustrated by impassable crevasses. Whenever a night surprise was attempted at some point of the cliff that appeared accessible the ever-watchful enemy would roll down their avalanches of rocks and also great fire-balls of resinous wood, whose blaze disclosed the whereabouts of our men, and enabled the defenders above to open a deadly musketry fire.

Day after day our men were engaged in these perilous but fruitless efforts to force a way past these rocky bulwarks of the enemy. Still we were held in check, and our position became one of considerable peril. The Hunzas, emboldened by the success of their resistance, threatened our line of communication with Gilgit, and the Shinaka tribes also were mobilising with the intention of falling upon us from below. Had they done so our small force would have probably been caught in a trap and cut to pieces, even as was the fate of a far larger force of Kashmir troops some years before in this very valley. Shut out, as we were, from all hope of succour for several months by the wintry Himalayas, but one course lay before our commander--at all risks to force the enemy’s position before their Shinaka allies could come to their assistance.

To Nagdu, a gallant Dogra sepoy of one of the Kashmir Imperial Service regiments, the credit is due for having discovered what was possibly the only practicable method of effecting our object. This man, like all his race, a good cragsman, volunteered to explore the precipices on the further side of the Nilt gorge, with a view of finding a point at which they could be scaled by our troops. Night after night he did this at great risk, for the enemy, perceiving him, used to roll down rocks and fire upon him from above. At last on one dark night he actually succeeded in climbing quite alone from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the cliff, undetected by the enemy, and reached the foot of the four strong _sangas_ indicated in the illustration. The enemy evidently considered this to be a vulnerable point, for we had observed that they used to roll down their rock avalanches from these _sangas_ at intervals each night, until at last a regular chute was worn apparently as a light streak against the darker cliff. Nagdu climbed down again in safety, returned to camp, and propounded his scheme. Nagdu, of his own native wit, realised a truth the ignorance of which has on more than one occasion brought commanders to grief--namely, that an almost perpendicular cliff is but a treacherous position under certain circumstances, and proves a deathtrap to those who would defend its summit. Nagdu pointed out that the cliff was so steep that the enemy would have to come out of their _sangas_ and lean over the edge of the precipice in order to fire at a scaling party, and this, he said, we ought to be able to prevent them from doing with a covering party of picked marksmen posted on our side of the gorge.

Nagdu’s plan was so obviously the right one that it was adopted, and it was decided to storm the enemy’s position at this point in broad daylight. Captain Colin Mackenzie, of the Seaforth Highlanders, who was in command during Captain Bradshaw’s temporary absence at Gilgit, despatched this forlorn hope without any delay. The 5th Gurkhas had borne the brunt of the first action; it was now the turn of the Imperial Service troops. Accordingly, Lieutenant Manners-Smith and Lieutenant Taylor, with 100 men of the Kashmir Bodyguard Regiment, left the camp noiselessly on the night of December 19th, which was very dark, and bivouacked in the Nilt gorge at a spot sheltered from rock-rolling, and just below the precipice that Nagdu had scaled. That night in camp we listened anxiously for any sound, for had the enemy detected the party as it ascended the gorge the rock avalanches would have wrought great havoc at several exposed places on the way. But we had luckily at last caught the tribesmen off their guard, and all was quiet.

Before dawn on the 20th the covering party, consisting of 135 marksmen selected from the different regiments, ascended the ridge and took up a position near the block house indicated in the illustration. Our men lined the edge of the cliff, having been divided into four parties, each of which was instructed to open a steady independent fire upon one particular _sanga_ of the four that were to be stormed. I was in command of one of these parties, and was therefore a spectator of what I am about to describe. The enemy opened fire upon us from the four _sangas_ (which were about 450 yards from our ridge) and from other _sangas_ that dotted the hillside. It was not long before the four _sangas_ were completely silenced by the fire we directed upon them: not a defender dared stand behind a loophole. Then Lieutenant Manners-Smith commenced the difficult ascent, followed by fifty of the sepoys, Lieutenant Taylor coming after with the other fifty. We saw the men, forming a long scattered stream, slowly and with difficulty scale the 1,200 feet of precipice, often coming to a check and having to return some distance to try again at some more accessible point. Only cragsmen, such as these were, could have climbed this frightful wall of rock.

At last, when they were two-thirds of the way up, Lieutenant Manners-Smith came to a sheer precipice no man could scale: he tried to the right and left of it, but could find no way of getting by, and then, to our dismay, abandoned the hopeless attempt, and took all his men down again to the foot of the gorge. But Manners-Smith, himself an expert cragsman, was determined to scale the cliffs somewhere that day and to try conclusions with the enemy at close quarters. So he started again at a point higher up the gorge, and this time, as we fired over his head, we saw him and a few of the most active of his followers attain a ledge only sixty yards below one of the four _sangas_. Here he waited a few seconds until more of his men had come up, and then he rapidly clambered to the edge of the cliff.

It was only at this moment, when the storming party had all but effected its task, that it became visible to the defenders of Maiun and of the other forts below, who, hearing the unwonted heavy firing, had come out upon the roof-tops and were gazing upwards at the ridge. They shouted a warning across the river, which was taken up by _sanga_ after _sanga_ on the cliff side, till it reached the men in the four _sangas_ that were the object of our attack, who for the first time realised that a party of men were scaling the cliff beneath them. They then, but too late, made a desperate attempt to defend their position. They threw rocks over the parapets, and some brave Hunzas rushed boldly out of the _sangas_ and rolled down the ready-piled-up mounds of stone, whose falling stirred great showers of rocks, ever increasing in volume as they thundered down the gorge. From our side we shot down each man as he appeared in the open, in most cases before he had time to roll down a single stone. Luckily, our men had by this time passed the most dangerous part of the ascent, and the greater portion of the stones rushed harmlessly to the left of them. Some men, however, were wounded, and Lieutenant Taylor was knocked down, but not severely injured, by a rock. Had the enemy received their warning but a few minutes earlier, the cataracts of rock would probably have swept a large proportion of the scaling party off the face of the cliff.

And now the order was given to the covering party to cease firing, and, as the smoke cleared, we saw Lieutenant Manners-Smith and a few men reach the foot of the _sanga_ to the right. They ran quickly round to the opening at the back of the _sanga_, a few shots were fired by the attacking party and the defenders, and then the former, rushing in, took the _sanga_ at the point of the bayonet, slaying most of those within. The rest of the sepoys now came up, and, despite the gallant stand of many of the enemy, _sanga_ after _sanga_ was taken by assault, and the whole hillside was covered with the flying tribesmen hurrying to the forts below. Upwards of 100 of them were shot down by our riflemen, but the greater portion escaped. This gallant forlorn hope had been rewarded with complete success, and the Kashmir Imperial Service troops had proved on this their first trial how well they could acquit themselves when properly led.

And now the defenders of Maiun, Thol, and all the fortifications on the plain below, seeing that their position--which they had deemed impregnable, and which from time immemorial had defied their enemies--had been actually turned, and knowing that we should cut off their retreat unless they escaped at once, lost heart, and, abandoning their posts, took to their heels. We saw the tribesmen in their hundreds fleeing up the valley for their lives on both sides of the river. They were not given time to recover from their panic and to organise a stand higher up. Our covering party was at once brought down the hill, our sappers quickly opened a rough track across the mouth of the gorge; we effected a junction with Lieutenant Manners-Smith’s party; and then, leaving baggage and commissariat behind, our whole force pushed up the valley in pursuit of the routed enemy. A forced march of thirty miles over the most difficult ground, along the face of precipices, across frozen torrents, glaciers, and wastes of rocky _débris_, brought us to the capital of Nagar in about twenty-four hours--a most creditable performance. The enemy offered no further resistance, and on the following day we occupied the thums’ hitherto inviolate citadel in the capital of Hunza.

The complete pacification of the country quickly followed. The Hunza-Nagars, having been treated with clemency, are now very well disposed to us. They acknowledge our suzerainty, but are ruled by their thums as of old; and we do not interfere with them in the least so long as they abstain from raiding and slave-hunting. The Hunza valley provides a new recruiting ground for India. When it was proposed to raise a Hunza levy for frontier defence, the young tribesmen gladly volunteered; and within a few months of the Hunza War, a small body of our recent foes, led by British officers, completely defeated a far superior force of Shinakas which had attacked our outposts on the Indus.

Lieutenant Manners-Smith, in recognition of his gallant leading of the forlorn hope on the 20th, received the Victoria Cross--the third that had been gained in the course of this short but memorable campaign.

GILGIT RESIDENCY.]

ASPROMONTE

BY CHARLES LOWE.]

Giuseppe (or Joseph) Garibaldi was for many years the most picturesque and interesting figure in all Europe. He might be called the William Wallace, or the William Tell, of Italy. His name (which is still a common enough one in Genoa among all ranks of life) is said to have been a corruption of Garibaldo, _i.e._ “Bold in War.” At any rate, a warlike star presided over his birth (at Nice in 1807), for he first saw the light in the very house where, forty years before, Masséna, one of the Great Napoleon’s greatest generals, was born.

At the time of his birth his native country--Italy--was in a woful state of disunion, and much of it was under the yoke of the foreigner--the Austrians in particular. It was cut up into several conflicting monarchies; while the Pope, the spiritual head of the Roman Church, also claimed--and had his claim allowed--to be temporal sovereign of Rome. But as the century grew older, the Italian people began to be stirred with a deep desire for national unity, without which they knew they could never become great, strong, or respected; and of all who threw themselves into this movement, none did so with more ardour than the son of the humble Nice skipper who sailed his own little vessel all over the Mediterranean.

This son, Giuseppe, took to his father’s calling, and began life as a sailor. Once, when second in command of a brig, he was attacked by Greek pirates, after which he landed at St. Nicholas to re-victual without so much as shoes to his feet. An Englishman, taking pity on him, offered him a pair, and this touched him to the heart.

“When I look back upon it now,” wrote Garibaldi in 1870 to _Cassell’s Magazine_, “I cannot help remembering that it was the first of the many acts of kindness which bind me with such strong and lasting ties of gratitude to your noble nation.”

In 1836 he had joined a revolutionary movement, which failed; and, after many privations and vicissitudes, he finally sailed for South America, where for the next ten years he led a life of the most stirring excitement and adventure among the quarrelsome young Republics of that continent--fighting now on one side and then on the other, like Rittmeister Dugald Dalgetty in the Thirty Years’ War, and gaining a name for the greatest personal bravery. The wanderings and adventures of Ulysses were nothing to those of Garibaldi, which would fill volumes of as fascinating reading as can be found in the pages of a novelist.

When the revolutionary movement of 1848 swept over Europe--including Italy--Garibaldi returned home with a knowledge of guerilla--or irregular--warfare such as was possessed probably by no other man alive; and then, with his volunteers, he threw himself heart and soul into the movement for “making Italy free,” as the phrase ran, “from the Alps to the Adriatic.”

With his Red-Shirt Volunteers, Garibaldi took a prominent part in the fighting of 1848 and 1859, and with his “Thousand”--as famous a fighting force as Xenophon’s “Ten Thousand”--he, in 1860, attacked and conquered the Two Sicilies (_i.e._ the island of Sicily and Naples), and made a present of these kingdoms to his sovereign Victor Emmanuel, after which he returned to his solitary farm on the little island of Caprera. Here, on this rocky island--fifteen miles in circumference, and five in length--Garibaldi was monarch of all he surveyed.

“The absence of priests,” he wrote, “is one of the especial blessings of this spot. Here God is worshipped in purity of spirit without formalism, free from mockery, under the canopy of the blue heavens, with the planets for lamps, the sea winds for music, and the green sward of the island for altars.”

This was the den, so to speak, into which the lion-patriot retired when no political prey was stirring. But no sooner did he scent the opportunity for action than out again he would rush with a roar, which was sometimes just as disquieting to his friends as to his foes. This was more particularly the case on the occasion which led to Aspromonte. But, before proceeding to the tragic scene of this encounter, let us see what sort of fighters Garibaldi and his red-shirted followers were.

“Garibaldi,” wrote a correspondent of _The Times_, “was a middle-sized man, and not of an athletic build, though gifted with uncommon strength and surprising agility. He looked to the greatest advantage on horseback, since he sat in the saddle with such perfect ease, and yet with such calm serenity, as if he were grown to it, having had, though originally a sailor, the benefit of a long experience in taming the wild mustangs of the Pampas. But his chief beauty was the head and the unique dignity with which it rose on the shoulders. The features were cast in the old classic mould: the forehead was high and broad, a perpendicular line from the roots of the hair to the eyebrows. His mass of tawny hair and full red beard gave the countenance its peculiar lion-like character. The brow was open, genial, sunny; the eyes dark grey, deep, shining with a steady reddish light; the nose, mouth, and chin exquisitely chiselled, the countenance habitually at rest, but at sight of those dear to him beaming with a caressing smile, revealing all the innate strength and grace of his loving nature.

“His garb consisted of a plain red shirt and grey trousers, over which he threw the folds of the Spanish-American _poncho_--an ample upper garment of thin white woollen cloth with crimson lining, which did duty as a standard, and round which his volunteers were bidden to rally in the thick of the fight, as did the French Huguenot chivalry round Henry of Navarre’s ‘_panache blanche_.’ His sword was a fine cavalry blade, forged in England and the gift of English friends, and with it he might be seen at his early breakfast on the tented field cutting his bread and slicing his Bologna sausage, and inviting those he particularly wished to distinguish, to share that savoury fare. The sabre did good slashing work at need, however, and at Milazzo, in Sicily, it bore him out safely from the midst of a knot of Neapolitan troopers who caught him by surprise and fancied they had him at their discretion. Garibaldi carried no other weapons, though the officers in his suite had pistols and daggers at their belts; and his negro groom, by name Aguyar, who for a long time followed him as his shadow, like Napoleon’s Mameluke, and was shot dead by his side at Rome, was armed with a long lance with a crimson pennon, used as his chief’s banner.

“His staff officers were a numerous, quaint, and motley crew, men of all ages and conditions, mostly devoted personal friends--not all of them available for personal strength or technical knowledge, but all to be relied upon for their readiness to die with or for him. The veterans he brought with him from Montevideo, a Genoese battalion whom his friend Augusto Vecchi helped to enlist, and the Lombard Legion, under Manara, were all men of tried valour, well trained to the use of the rifle, inured to hardships and privations; and they constituted the nucleus of the Garibaldian force throughout its campaigns. The remainder was a shapeless mass of raw recruits from all parts of Italy, joining or leaving the band almost at their pleasure--mere boys from the Universities, youths of noble and rich family, lean artisans from the towns, stout peasants and labourers from the country, adventurers of indifferent character, deserters from the army, and the like, all marching in loose companies, like Falstaff’s recruits, under improvised officers and non-commissioned officers; but all, or most of them, entirely disinterested about pay or promotion, putting up with long fasts and heavy marches, only asking to be brought face to face with the enemy, and when under the immediate influence of Garibaldi himself or of his trusty friends seldom guilty of soldierly excesses or of any breach of discipline. The effect the presence of the hero had among them was surprising. A word addressed to them in his clear, ringing, silver voice electrified even the dullest. An order coming from him was never questioned, never disregarded. No one waited for a second bidding or an explanation. ‘Your business is not to inquire how you are to storm that position. You must only go and do it.’ And it was done.”

“On the approach of a foe,” wrote one of his Lombard volunteers, Emilio Dandolo, “Garibaldi would ride up to a dominating point in the landscape, survey the ground for hours with the spyglass in brooding silence, and come down with a swoop on the enemy, acting upon some well-contrived combination of movements by which advantage had been taken of all circumstances in his favour.” And as this was his custom in the field of war, so it was ever also his habit in what must be called the field of politics. After finishing a campaign he would sheathe his sword and return to Caprera, there to stand and strain his eyes towards the mainland, watching for his next opportunity of action. Not an event escaped his notice, and he heard with a smile of contentment how Victor Emmanuel had stormed the fortress of Gaeta, and the two crowns of the Sicilies had been placed upon the head of the Piedmontese King. But the national unity was still far from complete. Above all things, Venice still remained under the yoke of the Austrians, while Rome was equally in the power of the French, who remained there to champion with their bayonets the pretensions of the Pope.

They had been there ever since 1849, when the Romans rose against the Pope, declared a Republic, and were supported by Garibaldi and his Red Shirts. But then the French rushed to the assistance of the Pope, and after a three months’ siege--during which the Garibaldians behaved with splendid bravery--at last stormed the city, restored the authority of the Pope, and compelled the Hero of Caprera to retire to the mountains.

“Soldiers!” he had said, on leading his men away from the Eternal City, “that which I have to offer you is this: hunger, thirst, cold, heat; no pay, no barracks, no rations; but frequent alarms, forced marches, charges at the point of the bayonet;” and 4,000 men had readily answered to this appeal.

The memory of this defeat rankled ever after in Garibaldi’s mind, and he determined to seize the first opportunity of retrieving it. This opportunity, he deemed, had at last come in the year 1862, soon after the death of the great statesman Cavour, who had been the Bismarck, so to speak, of Italian unity, as Victor Emmanuel had been its King William. But while Garibaldi had been their greatest support, he had also been the source of their greatest weakness. For he was not a regularly appointed servant of the Government, but the self-constituted soldier and champion of his country. He chose his own time for fighting, irrespective of what the King and his ministers wished, and thus often placed them in the greatest difficulty. So little, indeed, did Garibaldi consider his times and seasons for action, that he was said by many to have “an ass’s head linked to a lion’s heart.” He was nothing but a headlong soldier, who scorned the arts of statesmen; and his head was turned with his extraordinary popularity among the masses of the Italian people, who paid him something like Divine honours.

Everywhere this free-lance hero evoked far more enthusiasm than was even shown the King, who, naturally enough, followed Garibaldi’s movements with the greatest solicitude, whilst recognising that he had done so much for his country that the very greatest indulgence and forbearance had to be shown him.

But there came a time when it was thought that Garibaldi should not be allowed the free hand which had hitherto been granted him. This was when he announced his intention of placing the national flag on the walls of Rome, which still owned the dominion of the Pope, and was garrisoned by the French. However much Victor Emmanuel desired to see Rome become the capital of Italy, he could not forget the debt of gratitude which he owed the French, who had been his allies in the successful war against Austria in 1859; and when he heard of Garibaldi’s proposed enterprise, he issued a proclamation to his subjects, saying: “It is painful to me to see deluded and inexperienced young men forgetting their duties and the gratitude we owe our best allies, and making the name of Rome a watchword of war.... Italians! beware of guilty impatience and incautious agitation. When the hour to finish the Government work shall have come, the voice of your King will be heard among you. A call which does not come from him is a call to rebellion and to civil war. The responsibility and the rigour of the law will fall upon those who do not listen to my words.”

But this warning had no restraining effect on the eager Garibaldi, who only panted to recover for his country the Eternal City, exclaiming: “Rome! Rome! Who is not urged by thy very name to take up arms for thy deliverance?” At the same time, there is considerable reason for believing that the King and his Government had given secret encouragement to Garibaldi to embark upon his mad enterprise, in order to have a pretext for arresting the lion-hearted but inconvenient rebel. In any case, away to Sicily he went to make preparations for his Quixotic expedition. He probably calculated that the news of his enterprise would induce his countrymen to rise _en masse_, and that the French Emperor, seeing the enthusiasm of the Italian people, would withdraw his troops from Rome.

He landed at Palermo, whence a body of his volunteers marched to Corleone, a town of the interior, where they overpowered the National Guard and armed themselves with their muskets. Then they took up their quarters in a camp at Ficuzza, a forest district about twenty miles from Palermo. Here they were visited on August 1st by Garibaldi, who thus addressed them:

“My young fellow-soldiers! To-day again the holy cause of our country unites us. Again to-day, without asking whither going, what to do, with what hope of reward to our labours, with a smile on your lips and joy in your hearts, you hasten to fight our overbearing dominators, throwing a spark of comfort to our enslaved brethren.... I can only promise you toils, hardships, and perils; but I rely on your self-denial. I know you, ye brave young men, crippled in glorious combat! It is needless to ask you to display valour in fight. What I ask is discipline, for without that no army can exist. The Romans were disciplined, and they mastered the world. Endeavour to conciliate the goodwill of the population we are about to visit, as you did in 1860, and no less to win the esteem of our valiant army, in order, thus united with that army, to bring about the longed-for unity of the country.”

Garibaldi now went to Catania, where the royal troops already began to close round him with intent to take him prisoner. But many deserted to his side in the hope of sharing the martial glory which they believed to be again in store for the wayward Hero of Caprera. His force soon swelled to a very considerable body; but here it was on the island of Sicily, and how was it to get across to the mainland in order to commence its march on Rome? Garibaldi had no ships; but in the harbour of Catania there were lying three vessels--a French frigate, the _Marie Adelaide_; a French steamer, _Le Général Abbatucci_; and an Italian steamer, _Il Dispaccio_, belonging to the Florio Company. In addition to these vessels there was a royal Italian man-of-war--_Il Duca di Genova_--the commander of which gave out that he would fire on any of the other three ships which made bold to carry over Garibaldi and his Red Shirts to the mainland.

One day, however, the _Duca di Genova_ took it into its head to go for a little cruise outside the Straits of Messina--probably, indeed, because it had received secret orders to do so, in order the better to lure Garibaldi into the trap which had been laid for him. On the disappearance of the _Duca di Genova_, Garibaldi stepped into a boat with several trusty followers, and was rowed off to the other three vessels above referred to, when he put their respective captains under arrest, and then proceeded to fill them up with his impatient Red Shirts.

“At five o’clock in the afternoon,” says one of his biographers, “the embarkation commenced, and the good people of Catania crowded the harbour, waving handkerchiefs and cheering. Menotti” (Garibaldi’s son) “and his ‘Guides,’ the Tuscans, and the flower of the Sicilian volunteers, moved off for _Il Dispaccio_; General Corrao, with some more Sicilians, occupied _Le Général Abbatucci_; whilst Garibaldi took the command of the former and put Burratini in command of the _Marie Adelaide_, with orders to get her filled with troops as soon as possible. During this time it had been growing dark, and each ship was filled to suffocation, no one being able to lie down, or get any rest, as boats were for ever arriving with their cargoes of men. About midnight the ships were got under way; and after crossing the Straits in the dark, without any mishap, the troops were all safely landed at Melito next morning, on the spot celebrated as the one on which the former expedition had gone ashore.”

Garibaldi landed in Calabria with a force of about 3,000 men--a very insignificant body, one would have thought, to march against walled and embattled Rome with its formidable French garrison. But by the time he came into collision with the royal troops, who had been sent after him to arrest his progress, his little army of Red Shirts had dwindled by about a half on account of the privations to which it was exposed and the rapid marches which had been exacted of it.

On hearing of Garibaldi’s naval _coup-de-main_ at Catania, and his crossing over to Calabria, General Cialdini at once gave chase, and in order to catch the Hero of Caprera, he sent two of his generals--Revel and Vialardi--with a body of royal troops to draw a cordon across the isthmus of Tiriolo at its narrowest point, between Nicastro and Catanzaro, so as thus to bar the Rome-ward march of the Red Shirts. Having done this, he next ordered three vessels of war to cruise about the Straits so as to prevent Garibaldi from re-embarking, and then despatched Major-General Pallavicini, at the head of a considerable force, from Reggio, with instructions to drive the Red Shirts northwards in the direction of the aforesaid cordon on the isthmus, as game is driven by the beaters towards the sportsmen--Pallavicini’s instructions being to attack Garibaldi “anywhere and anyhow,” unless he consented to an unconditional surrender.

Things had thus assumed a very serious aspect indeed for the disillusioned Hero of Caprera, who, on the evening of the 28th August, after a long and tiring day’s march, had pitched his camp on the brow of the far-famed hill of Aspromonte, on a plateau overlooking the sea, with a wood behind which connected it with a high range of the Apennines, and would afford ample shelter for his troops. The men were encamped _al fresco_ under cover of this wood, whilst Garibaldi occupied one of two woodmen’s huts which were on the plateau, and gave the spot the name of “_i forestali_.” It was wet and gloomy, the rain put out the bivouac fires, every rag on their backs was soaked, and they had no provisions with them; so that the position of the volunteers was far from enviable.

Next morning General Pallavacini came up with the Red Shirts, and at once proceeded to carry out his orders. How he did this let us see from his own pen.

“On the morning of the 29th I set forth early, directing my course towards San Stefano, where I arrived at about half-past eight a.m. There, from secret information received, I knew that General Garibaldi had encamped with his force during the night on the plateau of Aspromonte. I ordered the troops to pursue the march until within a short distance of the plateau, and before allowing them to proceed I caused the troops to rest themselves, as they were excessively fatigued by a long march by abrupt paths. In the meantime I learned that only two hours previously General Garibaldi had encamped at the foot of the plateau of Aspromonte, and I saw that by two paths I could descend towards his camp.

“I then divided my troops into two columns, which arrived at the same time in view of the Garibaldian encampment, already abandoned by him, he having taken up a position on the crest of a rugged hillock to the east of the plateau of Aspromonte. I then sent an order to the commandant of the left column, while making the right column fall back by a rapid movement. I attacked the left flank of the rear of the rebels, in order to cut off their retreat. In the meantime, with a battalion, I caused the entrance of the valley to be occupied, that they might not regain the plateau. The left column, with the 6th Battalion of the Bersaglieri at their head, then attacked the rebels, and after a smart fire carried the position at the point of the bayonet with cries of ‘_Viva il Re!_’ ‘_Viva Italia!_’ while the left side was also attacked by our troops. General Garibaldi and his son Menotti” (who had written to a friend in Liverpool, “In three weeks we shall be in Rome!”) “having been wounded, and the rebels being surrounded on all sides, resistance became useless, whereupon the Garibaldians gave the signal to cease firing.”

Their own account of the engagement was somewhat different. Garibaldi himself wrote:--“They thirsted for blood, and I wished to spare it.... Yes, they thirsted for blood. I perceived it with sorrow, and I endeavoured, in consequence, to do my utmost to prevent that of our assailants from being shed. I ran to the front of our line, crying out to them not to fire, and from the centre to the left, where my voice and those of my aides-de-camp could be heard, not a trigger was pulled. It was not thus on the attacking side. Having arrived at a distance of two hundred metres, they began a tremendous fire, and the party of _Bersaglieri_ who were in front of me, directing their shots against me, struck me with two balls--one in the left thigh, not serious; the other in the ankle of the right foot, making a serious wound.

“As all this happened at the opening of the conflict, and I was carried to the skirt of the wood after being wounded, I could see nothing more, a dense crowd having formed round me while my wound was being dressed. I feel certain, however, that up to the end of the line (of troops) which was at my litter, and to that of my aides-de-camp, not a single musket shot was fired.... It was not so on our right. The _Picciotti_, attacked by the regular troops, replied by a fire along the whole line, and, although the trumpets sounded to cease firing, there was at that spot a smart fusilade, which lasted not more than a quarter of an hour. My wounds led to some confusion in our line. Our soldiers, not seeing me, began to retreat into the woods, so that, little by little, the crowd around me broke up, and the most faithful alone remained.”

A Garibaldian officer who was present thus wrote: “When the general received the bullet he was passing along our front, ordering the men not to fire. I saw a slight shiver pass through his body; he took two or three steps, and then began to stagger. We ran to him, holding him up; he was regardless of his sufferings. Raising his cap in the air, he cried ‘_Viva l’Italia!_’ I had his poor foot resting on my thigh; he called out to his assailants, and asked what they were doing with his people. I felt a shivering in all his limbs; and, reminding him of his wounds, I implored him to be quiet.”

While the surgeon was dressing his wounds, the sturdy soldier calmly produced a cigar and began to smoke, inquiring of the doctor whether he thought amputation would be necessary. Twenty minutes later he had an interview with his conqueror and captor, General Pallavacini, who assured him, with tears in his eyes, that this was the most miserable day of his life. Yet he had received certain orders, and he had no choice but to obey.

It was the bitterest of all moments for the hero of Italian unity when, staggering from the effects of his double wound, he fell forward upon the Italian soil to which he had devoted his whole life. Generals Cialdini and Pallavacini had been his friends and comrades, their troops were his compatriots and brothers-in-arms.

Two bullets had thus put an end, sudden and complete, to Garibaldi’s march on Rome, though he was to live to make another and an equally unsuccessful attempt upon the Eternal City. Meanwhile, the illustrious rebel was carried to prison at Spezzia, where he was, however, kept but a short time, and then removed to Pisa. There Dr. Nélaton, of Paris, who came all the way for the purpose, succeeded in extracting the bullet from Garibaldi’s ankle, for which bullet a hero-worshipping Englishman offered as much as 30,000 francs.