With the exception of soldiers, the streets were deserted; there was not a civilian to be seen anywhere, and the shops were still closed, the inhabitants, it appeared, only being allowed out of doors a few hours during the daytime. I think it was for two hours in the morning, and the same in the afternoon; after dark no inhabitant was allowed in the streets under any pretext. This system saved a lot of difficult policing, and gave the troops greater freedom of movement. We found that two cafés were open now, the “Grosses” and another next to the Theatre, but they were practically deserted. Coffee was about all you could get to drink; wine and beer being quite out of the question, and food also, as we discovered later. We arrived somewhat late in the afternoon, but the evenings were still long, and there was a full moon, so we knew there would be no difficulty in getting back to Udine even if we remained till after dark. It was rumoured that the Austrians were going to make a big counter-attack on Gorizia that night, and it was with the idea of perhaps seeing something interesting and getting some good “copy” that we had come. Luckily, as will be seen, we ran across a _confrère_, Arnaldo Fraccaroli, of the _Corriere della Sera_, who had driven in earlier in the afternoon with the same idea as ourselves, and he joined us, as the man he had come with was returning to Udine at once. But for reasons which we were unable to fathom, it was soon pretty evident that we were not wanted in Gorizia that day. At the Headquarters of the General in a big house on the Corso, we were received by an aide-de-camp with but scant courtesy; in fact, this was my first experience of anything of the kind in Italy, and was the more surprising as we all represented important papers, and our passes were in order in every respect. We were curtly informed, after being kept waiting in the street for some time, that the General was “out”; so we decided to go for a walk and return later. Except that more damage had been done by shells, there was little or no change in the streets, and from what we could gather there was little likelihood of the city resuming its normal aspect for a very long time; such of the inhabitants as could get away were doing so, and the Italian authorities were putting no obstacles in their way; as a matter of fact, Gorizia was not a place for non-combatants, as it was continually being bombarded. When we got back to the General’s Headquarters we found he had returned, but it was, however, one thing finding him in, quite another matter getting him to receive us. After again being kept waiting outside the garden gate till it was almost dark, we were coolly told by a sergeant that the General had nothing to tell us, so could not receive us. This was very disappointing, but there was no help for it. He was evidently peevish about something and did not want visitors.