For the first time, on the initiative of the Italian historian Renato Rizaliti, the memoirs of the brother of the famous biologist Ilya Mechnikov, Lev Ilyich Mechnikov (1838–1888), traveler, ethnographer, thinker, linguist, author of the epoch-making treatise “Civilization and the Great Historical Rivers” are published for the first time on the initiative of the Italian historian Renato Rizaliti. The accounts, originally published as journal articles, are now brought together and equipped with scientific apparatus, providing unique first-hand evidence of the Risorgimento, the fateful period of Italian unification, from a participant in the “expedition of the Thousand” against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi's own memoirs about this legendary campaign are included as an appendix.