Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

So sudden had been the outbreak of this war, and so little aware were the peasantry of the frontier of either its object or aim, that we frequently passed recruits for both armies on their way to head-quarters on the same day; honest Bavarians, who were trudging along the road with pack on their shoulders, and not knowing, nor indeed much caring, on which side they were to combat. My French comrades scorned to report themselves to any German officer, and pushed on vigorously in the hope of meeting with a French regiment. I had now conducted my little party to Immenstadt, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps; and, having completed my compact, was about to bid them good-by.

We were seated around our bivouac fire for the last time, as we deemed it, and pledging each other in a parting glass, when suddenly our attention was attracted to a bright red tongue of flame that suddenly darted up from one of the Alpine summits above our head. Another and another followed, till at length every mountain peak for miles and miles away displayed a great signal fire! Little knew we that behind that giant range of mountains, from the icy crags of the Glockner, and from the snowy summit of the Ortelér itself, similar fires were summoning all Tyrol to the combat; while every valley resounded with the war cry of “God and the Emperor!” We were still in busy conjecture what all this might portend, when a small party of mounted men rode past us at a trot. They carried carbines slung over their peasant frocks, and showed unmistakably enough that they were some newly-raised and scarcely-disciplined force. After proceeding about a hundred yards beyond us they halted, and drew up across the road, unslinging their pieces as if to prepare for action.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

In Italy the hours are reckoned from 1 to 24, commencing at sunset.

Continued from the December Number.