Whilst the republics vied with each other in extending their borders, two, Uri and Unterwalden, were unable to increase their territory, being hemmed in by lofty mountains. They turned their eyes towards the sunny south, beyond St. Gothard, where they might find additional lands. Like the Rhætians of old they had often descended into the Lombard plains, though for far more peaceful ends. When the St. Gothard pass was thrown open in the thirteenth century, there was a lively interchange of traffic between the two peoples--the cismontanes and the transmontanes. The men of the Forest sold their cheese, butter, cattle, and other Alpine produce at the marts in the Lombardian towns, and got from thence their supply of corn and other necessaries. And they of the Forest acted as guides across the mountains, as they did down to the railway era. Their youths, too, enlisted amongst the Italians soldiers, induced either by the prospect of gaining a living, or by a mere desire for amusement. Thus the Swiss associated on friendly terms with the southerners. But all this pleasant social intercourse was suddenly cut off. Whilst the Eidgenossen under the ægis of a weakened empire secured independence, the mighty Lombard cities, which had objected to imperial fetters, however light, by a singular contrast sank beneath the tyrannies of ambitious native dynasts, and under the Visconti the duchy of Milan sprang up from these free Italian towns. Quarrels that broke out between the Milanese and the people of the Forest prepared the way for the acquisition of Ticino by the Swiss. In 1403 Uri and Unterwalden were robbed of their herds of cattle at the mart of Varese by the officials of the Visconti, on what pretext is not clear. Failing to get redress, they at once decided on resorting to force. They seized the Livinenthal or Leventina, which willingly accepted the new masters. Fresh robberies in 1410 were revenged by the annexation of the Eschenthal, with Domo d'Ossola, which greatly preferred Swiss supremacy to that of the Duke of Milan. This is not much to be wondered at, seeing that Gian Maria Visconti was a second Nero for cruelty. The human beings who fell victims to his suspicion or revenge he had torn to pieces by huge dogs, which were fed on human blood. To strengthen their Italian acquisitions the Eidgenossen bought Bellinzona (1418) from the barons of Sax-Misox or Misocco of Graubünden. But the Milanese dukes would not brook the loss of these lands, and a long-protracted war ensued with varying success. Most of the more distant cantons being opposed to these Italian conquests declined to send help, but hearing that Bellinzona had been captured by the Visconti, some three thousand Eidgenossen marched to its relief in 1422. They were, however, no match for the twenty-four thousand troops gathered by the famous general Carmagnola. Lying in ambush for the Swiss he succeeded in completely shutting them in at