The white waistcoated manager showed me a fine room on the second floor, and on my enquiring the price, asked me, as I thought with diffidence, whether I thought six lires a day was too much. As I knew the charge in normal times would not have been less than three times that amount, I told him I did not—and took it. A stroll through the principal streets in the cool of the evening, when one might have expected some indication of popular feeling, revealed absolutely no sign of anything abnormal. It was outwardly the Rome of peace times, not as you would have expected to find it on the eve of war; yet the Press was full of the gravity of the impending crisis, and in the Capital, as on the journey towards it, one was struck by the remarkable absence of soldiers everywhere. The following day, Sunday, the 23rd of May, it was evident from the tenor of the morning papers that the _ultima ratio_ was in sight, and that it was now only a question of hours, or even minutes, when the momentous decision of the King would be announced. There was a significant calm everywhere that one could not fail to notice, though nobody appeared to have any doubt as to what was pending. Strangely enough all the old characteristics of the Latin race seem to be dying out—the excitability, the hotheadedness, the volubility of the Italian of the days of yore are no longer _en evidence_. The men of Italy of to-day are of a different fibre, and though the old-time mettle remains, it is shown differently. There is a growing tendency amongst all classes towards the imperturbability and placidity one associates with Northern races. Events are accepted more dispassionately, and there is far less of the garrulity and dramatic gesture of twenty years ago. As was generally anticipated, the fateful decision was made known towards evening, and the papers appeared announcing the declaration of war, and that Baron von Macchio, the Austrian Ambassador, had been handed his passports at 3.30. Even then, when one would have expected the pent up feelings of the people to display themselves in some form of demonstration, there was no commotion whatever. Along the Corso Umberto the gaily-dressed crowds strolled as leisurely as ever, and the laughter and merriment were the same as on any ordinary Sunday evening. There were perhaps more people about than usual, but this was probably because it was a delightfully cool evening after an exceptionally hot day. The Café Aragno, which is the hub of the political, journalistic and social life of the Capital, was, of course, packed, as it always is on Sundays. Groups of people were standing about in the roadway and on the pavement reading and discussing the news. “Extra Special” Editions of the evening papers, with fresh details of the situation, seemed to be coming out every few minutes, and the paper boys did a big trade.