A series of rules was drawn up, that none of us might be led into any avoidable temptation.  All towns within reach,—­Milan, Verona, Mantua, Brescia, Peschiera,—­were placed out of bounds.  So, too, were some of the larger villages on the shores of the Lake.  The hours during which alcoholic liquor might be obtained, either in the Hotels or in the Cafes of Sirmione, were narrowly limited.  Beer was strictly rationed.  Carefully regulated excursions on the Lake, by steamer or launch, were permitted and even encouraged.  Likewise bathing.

I spent a week here, from August 14th to 21st, in gloriously fine, hot weather.  Some said that the damp heat was relaxing and depressing, but I, in my second Italian summer, was getting acclimatised.  The place was wonderfully beautiful.  The end of the promontory is covered with olive trees, the ground thickly carpeted with wild mint and thyme, surrounded on three sides by the deep blue water of the Lake, along the shores of which lie little white villages, backed by groups of straight, dark cypresses, with mountain ranges rising in the background, range behind range, and overhead the hot Italian sun, shining from a cloudless sky.  Here, at the point, were the ruins of what are called, upon what evidence I know not, the Villa, the Baths and the Grotto of Catullus.  Here, too, was an Italian Anti-Aircraft Battery, and the Grotto of Catullus was filled with their ammunition.

The Austrians still held the upper end of the Lake, including the town of Riva.  But only Italian motor boats now survived on the Lake, occasionally raiding Riva.  The Austrian boats had all been sunk early in the war.

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On the 15th I went round the lower end of the Lake in a steamer and, passing along the shores of the beautiful Isola di Garda, on which stands the less beautiful Villa Borghese, landed at Maderno, famous for its lemon groves.  Here a church was being used as a ration store.  It had fine carving on the door.  The French had established Artillery and Machine Gun Schools close to the Lake and several of their officers were on the steamer.

On the 16th I went with a young officer from a Yorkshire Battalion, a most agreeable companion, to Desenzano, which was out of bounds.  We played billiards and lunched, and in the afternoon went to sleep on the grass in the shade beside the Lake.  We were driven back in a carrozza along the promontory by an old Garibaldino, a Capuan by birth, who in 1860 at the age of eleven joined Garibaldi, when he crossed from Sicily to the mainland, and held older people’s horses at the Battle of the Volturno.  He served with the Fifth Garibaldini in the Trentino campaign of 1866 and knew intimately the country where I had lately been, the Val d’Ampola and Storo, Tiarno and Bezzecca.  He then joined the Italian Regular Army, and in 1870 was a Corporal in the Pavia Brigade.  He was present at the taking of Rome and claimed that,