scarcely proceeded as far as Ponte di Brenta when I fell in with an
officer of Cialdini's staff, who was bound to the same destination,
namely, Dolo. As we proceeded along the road under a continuous shower
of rain, our eyes now and then dazzled by the bright serpent-like flashes
of the lightning, we fell in with some battalion or squadron, which
advanced carefully, as it was impossible for them as well as for us to
discriminate between the road and the ditches which flank it, for all the
landmarks, so familiar to our guides in the daytime, were in one dead
level of blackness. So it was that my companion and myself, after
stumbling into ditches and out of them, after knocking our horses' heads
against an ammunition car, or a party of soldiers sheltered under some
big tree, found ourselves, after three hours' ride, in this village of
Dolo. By this time the storm had greatly abated in its violence, and the
thunder was but faintly heard now and then at such a distance as to
enable us distinctly to hear the roar of the guns. Our horses could
scarcely get through the sticky black mud, into which the white
suffocating dust of the previous days had been turned by one night's
rain. We, however, made our way to the parsonage of the village, for we
had already made up our minds to ascend the steeple of the church to get
a view of the surrounding country and a better hearing of the guns if
possible. After a few words exchanged with the sexton--a staunch
Italian, as he told us he was--we went up the ladder of the church spire.
Once on the wooden platform, we could hear more distinctly the boom of
the guns, which sounded like the broadsides of a big vessel. Were they
the guns of Persano's long inactive fleet attacking some of Brondolo's or
Chioggia's advanced forts? Were the guns those of some Austrian man-of-
war which had engaged an Italian ironclad; or were they the
'Affondatore,' which left the Thames only a month ago, pitching into
Trieste? To tell the truth, although we patiently waited two long hours
on Dolo church spire, when both I and my companion descended we were not