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The Austrian army was in full retreat when it was pulled up near Magenta, with the object of checking the advance of the French, who had already begun to cross the Ticino by the bridges of San Martino and Buffalora, which the Austrians had tried to blow up, but had not succeeded from want of proper powder.
Three routes were open to Melas. The most direct was by way of Tortona and Piacenza along the southern bank of the Po, through the difficult defile of Stradella: or he might retire towards Genoa, across the Apennines, and regain Mantua by a dash across the Modenese: or he might cross the Po at Valenza and the Ticino near Pavia.
Now the loud-voiced Ticino was our companion, and we swept down through an open valley to Faido, where we met the first human being we had seen since we left Gurtnellen. It was a very old man, with a red cap, like a stocking, pulled close upon his head.
Reaching at dusk the last height above the vale of the Ticino, we saw the little village of Airolo with its musical name, lying in a hollow of the mountains. A few minutes of leaping, sliding and rolling, took us down the grassy declivity, and we found we had descended from the top in an hour and a half, although the distance by the road is nine miles!
The sarcophagi were to support portrait statues of the Dukes and Popes, of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. At the foot were to be six rivers, two under each tomb—the Arno, Tiber, Metauro, Po, Taro, and Ticino. The drawings go to prove that the architectural background, as we see it now, is as incomplete as it looks.
Soon Jack called to us that we had crossed the border line of the Canton Ticino, and presently through the blackness twinkled the little lakes which mark the summit of the Pass.
The limit of the German dialect is on the summit of St. Gothard, and the peasants saluted us with a "buon giorno" as they passed. This, with the clearness of the skies and the warmth of the air, made us feel that Italy was growing nearer. The mountains are covered with forests of dark pine, and many beautiful cascades come tumbling over the rocks in their haste to join the Ticino.
On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy.
It lies on the left bank of the Ticino River, and was in the olden times the residence of the Lombard kings, who did not fail to beautify and improve it in their day to such an extent that it was known all over Europe as the "City of a Hundred Towers," many of which are extant and in excellent preservation.
More than 60,000 people attacked the French, and drove them back into the Castello, where they spent the night, without forage for their horses, and on Monday morning, the day before yesterday, they fled from Milan in terror. The bridges had been broken down to hinder their passage, but, luckily for them, the Ticino was low, and they crossed the bed of the river, and retired to Gaiata in safety.
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