on which a whole corps d’amee is marching with an enormous materiel of war in a pitch dark night.  This, however, is what your special correspondent was obliged to do.  Fortunately enough, I had 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 in a position to solve either of these problems.  We, however, thought then, and still think, they were the guns of the Italian fleet which had attacked an Austrian fort.

Civita Vecchia, July 22, 1866.

Since the departure from this port of the old hospital ship ‘Gregeois’ about a year ago, no French ship of war had been stationed at Civita Vecchia; but on Wednesday morning the steam-sloop ‘Catinat,’ 180 men, cast anchor in the harbour, and the commandant immediately on disembarking took the train for Rome and placed himself in communication with the French ambassador.  I am not aware whether the Pontifical government had applied for this vessel, or whether the sending it was a spontaneous attention on the part of the French emperor, but, at any rate, its arrival has proved a source of pleasure to His Holiness, as there is no knowing what may happen In troublous times like the present, and it is always good to have a retreat insured.