cii MEMOIR 



tower. MM. T and S will be left there: T an 



intelligent, hard-working Frenchman with whom I am well 

 pleased ; he can speak English and Italian well, and has been 



two years at Genoa. S is a French German with a face 



like an ancient Gaul, who has been sergeant-major in the 

 French line and who is, I see, a great, big, muscular faineant. 

 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 experi- 

 ments ; 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 English Garibal- 

 dini. 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 and beautiful. 

 Cagliari rises on a very steep rock, at the mouth of a wide plain 

 circled by large hills and three-quarters filled with lagoons ; it 

 looks, therefore, like an old island citadel. Large heaps of salt 

 mark the border between the sea and the lagoons ; thousands of 

 flamingoes whiten the centre of the huge shallow marsh ; hawks 

 hover and scream among the trees under the high mouldering 

 battlements. A little lower down, the band played. Men and 

 ladies bowed and pranced, the costumes posed, church bells 



