Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

THE CHOLERA OF 1867. 433
family, of so many others dying like him, so many other
families like his own, who would be deprived of their dearest
members. . . .
Suddenly he started, gave a sigh, and
moved off, saying : " He has spent his life nobly." And the
others all followed him silently.
The last province in which the cholera raged
at the end of
'67 was that of Reggio di Calabria. It had already ceased in
Sicily. During the first days of September, the long and frequent
rains having produced a marked depression
in the atmosphere,
the cholera had begun to decrease slowly
in the
provinces of Palermo and Messina, and rapidly in those of
Trapani, Girgenti, Syracuse, Catania, and Caltanisetta^
It
broke out again in these two cities toward the middle of September
;
but only for a few days. After which the general health
improved in all parts of the island, so that in the month of
October the army only lost twenty men, and November seven, in
December none, or one or two at most. From the beginning
of the decrease of the epidemic, the cities, villages, and country
changed their entire aspect. The first terror, which had
crushed every feeling of love of country or charity
in the
hearts of the majority of the citizens, having subsided, the
fugitives, the greater number of whom were rich or well-to-do
people, began to return to their homes, and to scatter among
the indigent population that assistance, in the way of money,
work, and advice, which they had denied at first. And the
people took courage instantly, and, as if waking from a profound
and painful lethargy, returned little
by little to the ordinary
duties of which had been life,
laid aside or performed at
intervals, with an inertia and a species of timid bewilderment