The Austrians, on learning how they had been tricked, assembled at Camerlata, and intercepted the line of the Ticino at Varese, believing that they would thereby cut off the retreat of the force and surprise it. Garibaldi troubled himself little about that proceeding, and induced the towns and villages to revolt. A proclamation was issued by the general, inviting the whole of the Varesotto province to rise against their oppressors. The appeal was generally listened to, and men of every age and condition hastened to the official residence of Marquis Visconti, the extraordinary commissioner sent by Count Cavour as the coadjutor of the Italian general. In less than two hours the whole of the surrounding country was in arms. Old men, children, and even women, came to the Town Hall, with all sorts of weapons, ready to help the small band (3,000) of their brethren. Varese was soon fortified, barricades erected, means of defence carefully ordered. Bands of peasants were pouring into the town from the numberless hamlets, villas, and villages which deck the picturesque hills of that beautiful country—the finest in Lombardy, and, perhaps of Europe. Garibaldi, who is always to be found everywhere when danger is coming, began to array in companies the new comers, and gave the necessary orders for the defence of the country, as he supposed that the Austrians posted at Gallarate would attack him the next day. He was not deceived in his expectation, for on Wednesday morning, at dawn three hundred Croats and one hundred and thirty Hussars, with a field battery, marched from Gallarate to Sesto Calende, where the advance guard of Italian Chasseurs was posted. This advance guard was commanded by Capt. Decristoforis, a young man of great military ability, who only two months before was in England, and kept a first-rate military school at Putney. After a fight, which lasted two hours, the enemy was completely defeated, leaving some prisoners. The Austrians were obliged to retire on Somma, and nothing was heard of them till next morning at four o'clock.