144 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



and who is, I see, a great, big, muscular fainSant. 

 We left the tent pitched and some stores in charge 

 of a guide, and ran back to Cagliari. 



* Certainly, being at the head of things is 

 pleasanter than being subordinate. We all agree 

 very well ; and I have made the testing office 

 into a kind of private room where I can come 

 and write to you undisturbed, surrounded by my 

 dear, bright brass things which all of them remind 

 me of our nights at Birkenhead. Then I can work 

 here, too, and try lots of experiments ; you know 

 how I like that ! and now and then I read 

 Shakespeare principally. Thank you so much for 

 making me bring him : I think I must get a 

 pocket edition of Hamlet and Henry the Fifth, so 

 as never to be without them. 



' CAGLIARI, October 7- 



* [The town was full ?] . . . of red-shirted Eng- 

 lish Garibaldini. A very fine-looking set of fellows 

 they are, too : the officers rather raffish, but with 

 medals Crimean and Indian ; the men a very sturdy 

 set, with many lads of good birth I should say. 

 They still wait their consort the Emperor and will, 

 I fear, be too late to do anything. I meant to have 

 called on them, but they are all gone into barracks 

 some way from the town, and I have been much 

 too busy to go far. 



* The view from the ramparts was very strange 



