Leary and I and two others started early in a car, adequately armed and carrying a day's rations and a flask in which rum had been mixed accidentally with florio (marsala).

His own account of his landing at Marsala and of the Battle of Calatafimiregarded by him as one of the most memorable in his military experienceis as characteristic of Garibaldi the man and writer as were his exploits characteristic of Garibaldi the soldier.

On the roadstead of Marsala two men-of-war were anchored, which turned out to be English.

Having decided on landing at Marsala, we approached that port, and reached it about noon.

The Bourbon cruisers had left the harbor of Marsala that morning, sailing eastward, while we were arriving from the west; indeed, they were still in sight toward Cape San Marco as we entered, so that by the time they came within cannon-shot we had already landed all the men out of the Piemonte and were beginning to debark those on board the Lombardo.

The assertion, however, made by our enemies, that the English had directly favored and assisted our landing at Marsala, was inaccurate.

The population of Marsala, thunderstruck at this unexpected event, received us pretty well, all things considered.

We passed the remainder of the day and the following night at Marsala, where I began to profit by the services of Crispi, an honest and capable Sicilian, who was of the greatest use to me in government business, and in making all necessary arrangements which my want of local knowledge prevented my doing myself.

The cause of Italian unity and independence had indeed made prodigious strides, due not only to the marvellous victories of Garibaldi, which had brought him in four months from Marsala to Naples, but also to the skilful campaigns of Generals Fanti and Cialdini in Umbria and the Marches.

[Illustration: The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel] With his thousand “red-shirts,” as they were called, Garibaldi landed on the island of Sicily, at Marsala.

Maria Theresa (mä rī′ä tĕr ēs′ä) Marlborough (märl′bō rō) Marsala (mär sä′lȧ)

I was desperate, and, when Garibaldi set out on the Marsala expedition, I was just on the point of sailing to join him when I received a letter from the father of my fiancée, telling me that her perplexities and distress of mind over our marriage had so increased that they feared for her reason if she were not set at rest.

One of Crispi's oldest and most constant friends told me of a visit he once made to his house with General, one of the Mille of Marsala, when, as they left the house, the general said mournfully, "Poor Crispi, he has not a friend in the world."

There, in a labored Italian, sprinkled with Spanish interjections, he could talk of Beethoven and of the hero of Marsala; and for hour after hour he would sit wrapt in ecstasy, gazing, through the dense atmosphere, at the red shirt and the blond, grayish locks of the great Giuseppe, while his comrades told stories of this, the most romantic, of adventurers.