"CITIZEN TRIUMVIR: I have received your letter. I am somewhat better and
at my post. I have spoken with Pisacane [chief of Rosselli's staff]; we
are perfectly agreed. Both animated by the same spirit, it is impossible
for petty jealousies to come between us. Be assured of this. I have
begged General Garibaldi to return to San Pancrazio, so as not to
deprive that post at this moment of his legion and his efficacious
power. He promises me that before dawn all will be here. Everything is
quiet.
"MANARA."
This was Manara's last letter to Mazzini; at that same Villa Spada the
yearned-for bullet pierced his heroic heart. Manara died as the
barbarians entered Rome.
And here, to all appearances, is Garibaldi's last letter written in Rome
to Mazzini:
"We have retaken our positions outside San Pancrazio. Let General
Rosselli send me orders; this is now no time for change. Yours,
"G. GARIBALDI."
No time for anything but one last desperate onslaught at the point of
the bayonet, Garibaldi in the foremost ranks with sword unsheathed,
while Medici from Villa Savorelli renewed the wonders of the Vascello.
Twice the assailants were driven back to their second lines; thrice they
returned in overpowering numbers; but, gaining the gate, they were
received with volleys of musketry from the barricades at the ingress to
Villa Spada and Savorelli. There fell the flower of the Lombards; boys
of the "band of hope"; Garibaldi's giant negro, faithful, brave Anghiar;
six hundred added to the three thousand four hundred corpses on which
the soldiers of _La Grande Nation_ reconstructed the throne of the
supreme Pontiff, and guarded it with their bayonets until the sword of
their self-chosen master fell from his trembling hands at Sedan.
(1849) LIVINGSTONE'S AFRICAN DISCOVERIES, David Livinstone and Thomas
Hughes
Although Africa, the second largest grand division of the earth, has
figured in history from ancient times, still it has been rightly named,
and until recently was called with good reason, the "Dark Continent."
But though it has been thus designated, as the least known of the
world's grand divisions, the progress of discovery and settlement is
rapidly dispelling the ignorance and mystery to which the designation
was due. The ancient seats of African civilization were confined to the
northern parts of the continent. The Phoenicians are said to have
circumnavigated Africa as early as the seventh century before Christ. In
the middle of the fifteenth century of the present era the Portuguese
explored much of the coastline, and in 1497 Vasco da Gama doubled the
Cape of Good Hope. But no modern explorations of the interior are known
to have been made until the latter part of the eighteenth century. Since
James Bruce, the Scottish traveller, explored the Nile Valley in 1768,
more than thirty others have distinguished themselves by their
discoveries on the African continent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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