"Miss ——:—Many times I have thought I would write to acknowledge the kindness shown by you and the other good ladies of the hospital to us poor soldiers when we were brought from Savannah, Andersonville, and Millen. I remember with gratitude the first kind words expressed towards us, and how strange and good they sounded after being so long deprived of them. Although they might not seem much to the giver, yet I believe they will live in the memory of us soldier boys long after the war is over. I can never forget how much was done for us all on our return from prison to hospital; but many thousands lie under the soil of Georgia, monuments of the cruelty and wickedness of this Rebellion,—the head of all the rebellions of earth for blackness and horror. Those only can feel the extent of it who have seen their comrades, as I have, lying in the broiling sun, without shelter, with swollen feet and parched skin, in filth and dirt, suffering as I believe no people ever suffered before in the world. But, thank God, these things have come, I hope, to an end. May they never exist again in the good land! With kind regards to all,
"Very truly,
"Boston Corbett."
The ravages of the malignant fever which had broken out in the hospital were not confined to the patients. Surgeons and chaplain yielded their lives at its deadly touch. Then, too, was the bond severed which had harmoniously united a happy sisterhood for many months. Of the six who went down to the brink of the river of death, five crossed over to the heavenly shore. She who alone remained gives these simple memories to the reader.
MINOR ITALIAN TRAVELS.
I.
PISA.
I am afraid that the talk of the modern railway traveller, if he is honest, must be a great deal of the custodians, the vetturini, and the facchini, whose agreeable acquaintance constitutes his chief knowledge of the population among which he journeys. We do not now-a-days carry letters recommending us to citizens of the different places. If we did, consider the calamity we should be to the be-travelled Italian communities we now bless! No; we buy our through-tickets, and we put up at the hotels praised in the hand-book, and are very glad of a little conversation with any native, however adulterated he may be by contact with the world to which we belong. I do not blush to own that I love the whole rascal race which ministers to our curiosity and preys upon us, and I am not ashamed to have spoken so often as I have done in former sketches of the lowly and rapacious but interesting porters who opened to me the different gates of that great realm of wonders, Italy. I doubt if they can be much known to the dwellers in the land, though they are the intimates of all sojourners and passengers; and if I have any regret in the matter, it is that I did not more diligently study them when I could. The opportunity, once lost, seldom recurs; they are all but as transitory as the Object of Interest itself. I remember that years ago, when I first visited Cambridge, there was an old man appeared to me in the character of Genius of the College Grounds, who showed me all the notable things in our city,—its treasures of art, its monuments,—and ended by taking me into his wood-house, and sawing me off from a wind-fallen branch of the Washington Elm a bit of the sacred wood for a remembrancer. Where now is that old man? He no longer exists for me, neither he nor his wood-house nor his dwelling-house. Let me look for a month about the College Grounds, and I shall not see him. But somewhere in the regions of traveller's faery he still lives, and he appears instantly to the new-comer; he has an understanding with the dryads who keep him supplied with boughs from the Washington Elm, and his wood-house is full of them.