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We followed a foot-path of the natives, who seemed very numerous, which led towards another range west by south; and crossed several tea-tree creeks, Pandanus groves, and swamps full of a high blady grass. Oct. 10. I moved my camp to the chain of lagoons, which we found yesterday; and our horses and cattle enjoyed the fine feed.

Peter had been a very present help." Indirectly Attila was the strengthener of the Papacy, and the founder of Venice. That stately and gorgeous city owes its origin to the Italians who fled in terror before the brutal Huns from ruined Padua to the islands and lagoons at the mouth of the Piave.

B2 had the more comfortable and better-shaded positions, but B1, though their guns were among the rocks and in the full heat of the sun, were in easy reach of the sea, and had a Rest Camp at Grado among the lagoons.

The basaltic table land, which extended all along the right side of the creek, formed steep slopes into its valley, and were generally topped with loose basaltic boulders. The table land was highest near the creek, and its drainage was not towards the creek, but to the south-west, into the valley of lagoons.

In the rainy season, the whole valley is probably covered with water; for we frequently observed the marks of torrents rushing down from the hills; and, along the foot of the ridges, ponds and lagoons were frequent. The heat of summer had already burnt up a great part of the grasses; and it was only in the immediate neighbourhood of the river that there was any appearance of verdure.

There was deeper languor in the laziness of the soldiers of finance, as they lounged and slept upon their floating custom houses in every channel of the lagoons; and the hollow voices of the boatmen, yelling to each other as their wont is, had an uncommon tendency to diffuse themselves in echo.

From these appearances I determined upon sending my party back to Brown's Lagoons, to secure water; whilst I should examine the country in advance, in order to ascertain the extent of the scrub, in which we were entangled.

Now we are well lost in the lagoons Venice no longer visible behind; the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue.

Of the former kinds, I found a Limnaea in great numbers in a lake, into which, the inhabitants assured me that the sea enters once a year, and sometimes oftener, and makes the water quite salt. I have no doubt many interesting facts, in relation to marine and fresh water animals, might be observed in this chain of lagoons, which skirt the coast of Brazil.

As works of art they are not of the first class, but they convey here and there a vivid sense of life and movement, an advance of the Bersaglieri with their cocks' feathers waving in the wind, Garibaldini in their red shirts rushing Bomba's gunners on the Volturno, Italian cavalry charging a Battalion of brown-coated Croats at Custozza, the defence of a fort in the Venetian lagoons against Austrian warships.