336 Mary Somerville. 



eminent Professor Nelaton saved him from amputa- 

 tion, with which he was threatened, by extracting 

 the bullet from his ankle. I never saw Garibaldi 

 during his three months' residence at Varignano and 

 Spezia ; I had no previous acquaintance with him ; 

 consequently, as I could be of no use to him, I did 

 not consider myself entitled to intrude upon him 

 merely to gratify my own curiosity, although no 

 one admired his noble and disinterested character 

 more than I did. Not so, many of my country- 

 men, and countrywomen too, as well as ladies of 

 other nations, who worried the poor man out of 

 his life, and made themselves eminently ridicu- 

 lous. One lady went so far as to collect the hairs 

 from his comb, others showered tracts upon him. 



I had hitherto been very healthy ; but in the 

 beginning of winter I was seized with a severe 

 illness which, though not immediately dangerous, 

 lasted so long, that it was doubtful whether I 

 should have stamina to recover. It was a painful 

 and fatiguing time to my daughters. They were 

 quite worn out with nursing me ; our maid was ill, 

 and our man-servant, Luigi Lucchesi, watched me 

 with such devotion that he sat up twenty-four nights 

 with me. He has been with us eighteen years, and 

 now that I am old and feeble, he attends me with 

 unceasing kindness. It is but justice to say that 



