On a hot and sultry day of June, I found myself seated in a country cart, and under the guard of two mounted dragoons, wending my way toward Kuffstein, a Tyrol fortress, to which I was sentenced as a prisoner. A weary journey was it; for in addition to my now sad thoughts, I had to contend against an attack of ague, which I had just caught, and which was then raging like a plague in the Austrian camp. One solitary reminiscence, and that far from a pleasant one, clings to this period. We had halted on the outskirts of a little village called "Broletto," for the siesta; and there, in a clump of olives, were quietly dozing away the sultry hours, when the clatter of horsemen awoke us; and on looking up, we saw a cavalry escort sweep past at a gallop. The corporal who commanded our party hurried into the village to learn the news, and soon returned with the tidings that "a great victory had been gained over the French, commanded by Bonaparte in person; that the army was in full retreat; and this was the dispatch an officer of Melas's staff was now hastening to lay at the feet of the emperor." "I thought several times this morning," said the corporal, "that I heard artillery; and so it seems I might, for we are not above twenty miles from where the battle was fought." "And how is the place called?" asked I, in a tone skeptical enough to be offensive. "Marengo," replied he; "mayhap the name will not escape your memory." How true was the surmise, but in how different a sense from what he uttered it! But so it was; even as late as four o'clock the victory was with the Austrians. Three separate envoys had left the field with tidings of success; and it was only late at night that the general, exhausted by a disastrous day, and almost broken-hearted, could write to tell his master that "Italy was lost." I have many a temptation here to diverge from a line that I set down for myself in these memoirs, and from which as yet I have not wandered--I mean, not to dwell upon events wherein I was not myself an actor; but I am determined still to adhere to my rule; and leaving that glorious event behind me, plod wearily along my now sad journey. Day after day we journeyed through a country teeming with abundance; vast plains of corn and maize, olives, and vines every where: on the mountains, the crags, the rocks, festooned over cliffs, and spreading their tangled networks over cottages, and yet every where poverty, misery, and debasement, ruined villages, and a half-naked, starving populace, met the eye at every turn. There was the stamp of slavery on all, and still more palpably was there the stamp of despotism in the air of their rulers.