Sicilian
mule-carts, hundreds upon hundreds of them, two-wheeled, painted
bright yellow or bright red and covered with gay little paintings such
as one sees on ice cream venders' carts and hurdy-gurdies, the harness
of the mules studded with brass and hung with scarlet tassels. Then
long strings of donkeys, so heavily laden with wine-skins, with bales
of hay, with ammunition-boxes, that all that could be seen of the
animals themselves were their swinging tails and wagging ears. We met
convoys of Austrian prisoners, guarded by cavalry or territorials, on
their way to the rear. They looked tired and dirty and depressed, but
most prisoners look that. A man who has spent days or even weeks amid
the mud and blood of a trench, with no opportunity to bathe or even to
wash his hands and face, with none too much food, with many of his
comrades dead or wounded, with a shell-storm shrieking and howling
about him, and has then had to surrender, could hardly be expected to
appear high-spirited and optimistic. Yet it has long been the custom
of the Allied correspondents and observers to base their assertions
that the morale of the enemy is weakening and that the quality of his
troops is deteriorating on the demeanor of prisoners fresh from the
firing-line. Ambulances passed us, travelling toward the hospitals at
the base, and sometimes wounded men, limping along on foot. The heads
of some were swathed in blood-stained bandages, some carried their
arms in slings, others hobbled by with the aid of sticks, for the
Italian army is none too well supplied with ambulances and those who
are able to walk must do so in order that the places in the ambulances
may be taken by their more seriously wounded fellows. They were
dog-tired, dirty, caked with mud and blood, but they grinned at us
cheerfully--for were they not beating the Austrians? Indeed, one
cannot look at Italian troops without seeing that the spirit of the
men is high and that they are confident of victory.

Now the roads became crowded, but never blocked, with troops on the
march: infantry of the line, short, sturdily built fellows wearing
short capes of greenish gray and trench-helmets of painted steel;
Alpini, hardy and active as the goats of their own mountains, their
tight-fitting breeches and their green felt hats with the slanting
eagle's feather making them look like the chorus of _Robin Hood_;
Bersaglieri, the flower of the Italian army, who have preserved the
traditions