 5. Hannibal crosses the Alps It is difficult for anyone who has not actually seen such mountain scenery as it presented by the Alps to form any clear conception of its magnificence and grandeur. Hannibal had never seen the Alps, but the world was filled then as now with their fame. Some of the leading features of sublimity and grandeur, which these mountains exhibit, results mainly from the perpetual cold which rains upon their summits. This is owing simply to their elevation. In every part of the earth, as we ascend from the surface of the ground into the atmosphere, it becomes for some mysterious reason or other more and more cold as we rise, so that over our heads, wherever we are, there rains at a distance of two or three miles above us, an intense and perpetual cold. This is true not only in the cool and temperature latitudes, but also in the most torrid regions of the globe. If we were to ascend in a balloon at Borneo at midday, when the burning sun of the tropics was directly over our heads, to an elevation of five or six miles, we should find that although we had been moving nearer to the sun all the time, its rays would have lost gradually all their power. They would fall upon us as brightly as ever, but their heat would be gone. They would feel like moonbeams, and we should be surrounded with an atmosphere as frosty as that of the icebergs in the frigid zone. It is from this region of perpetual cold that hailstones descend upon us in the midst of summer, and snow is continually forming and falling there, but the light and fleaky flakes melt before they reach the earth, so that while the hail has such solidity and momentum that it force its way through, the snow dissolves and falls upon us as a cool and refreshing rain. Rain cools the air around us and the ground, because it comes from cooler regions of the air above. Now it happens that not only the summits, but extensive portions of the upper declimities of the Alps rise into the region of perpetual winter. Of course ice congeals continually there, and the snow which forms falls to the ground as snow, and accumulates in vast and permanent stores. The summit of Mont Blanc is covered with a bed of snow of enormous thickness, which is almost as much a permanent geological stutterm of the mountain as the granite which lies beneath it. Of course during the winter months the whole country of the Alps, valley as well as hill, is covered with snow. In the spring the snow melts in the valleys and plains, and higher up it becomes damp and heavy with partial melting, and slides down in the declimities in vast avalanches, which sometimes are of such enormous magnitude, and descend with such resistless force as to bring down earth, rocks, and even the trees of the forest in their train. On the higher declimities however, and over all the rounded summits, the snow still clings to its place, yielding but very little to the feeble beams of the sun, even in July. There are vast ravines and valleys among the higher Alps where the snow accumulates, being driven into them by winds and storms in the winter, and sliding into them with great avalanches in the spring. These vast dispositories of snow become change into ice below the surface, for at the surface there is a continual melting, and the water flowing down through the mass freezes below. Thus there are valleys or rather ravines, some of them two or three miles wide, and ten or fifteen miles long, filled with ice, transparent, solid, and blue, hundreds of feet in deep. They are called glaciers, and what is most astonishing in respect to these icy accumulations is that, through the ice is perfectly compact and solid, the whole mass is found to be continual in a state of slow motion down the valley in which it lies, at the rate of about a foot in twenty-four hours. By standing upon the surface and listening attentively, we hear from time to time a grinding sound. The rocks which lie along the sides are pulverized and are continually moving against each other and falling, and then besides, which is a more direct and positive proof still of the motion of the mass, a mark may be set up upon the ice, as has been often done, and marks corresponding to it made upon. The solid rocks on each side of the valley, and by this means the fact of the motion, and the exact rate of it, may be fully ascertained. Thus these valleys are really and literally rivers of ice, rising among the summits of the mountains, and flowing slowly it is true, but with a continuous and certain current, to a sort of mountain some great and open valley below. Here the streams which have flown over the surface above, and descended into the mass, through countless crevices and chrasms, into which the traveler looks down with terror, concentrates and issues from under the ice in a turbid torrent, which comes out from a vast archway, made by the falling in of the masses, which the water has undermined. The slower end of the glacier sometimes presents a perpendicular wall, hundreds of feet in high. Sometimes it crowds down into the fertile valley, advancing in some unusually cold summer into a cultivated country, where as it slowly moves on, it plows up the ground, carries away the orchard and fields, and even drives the inhabitants from the villages with its threatens. If the next summer proves warm, the terrible monster slowly draws back its rigid head, and the inhabitants return to the ground it reluctantly evacuates, and attempt to repair the damage it has done. The Elbs lie between France and Italy, and the great valleys and the ranges of mountain land lie in such a direction that they must be crossed in order to pass from one country to the other. These ranges are, however, not regular. They are traversed by innumerable chasms, fissures, and ravines. In some places they rise in vests round the summits and swells, covered with fields of spotless snow. In others they tower in lofty, needle-like peaks, which even the chamois cannot scale, and where scarcely a flake of snow can find a place of rest. Around and among these peaks and summits, and through these frightful defiles and chasms, the roads twist and turn, in a zigzag and constantly ascending course, creeping along the most frightful precipices, sometimes beneath them and sometimes on the brink, penetrating the darkest and gloomiest defiles, skirting the most impetuous and foaming torrents, and at last, perhaps, emerging upon the surface of a glacier, to be lost in innumerable fields of ice and snow, where countless brooks running glassy channels and crevices yawn, ready to take advantage of any slip which may enable them to take down the traveller into their bottomless abysses. And yet notwithstanding the awful desolation which rains in the upper regions of the Alps, the lower valleys, through which the streams finally meander out into the open plains, and by which the traveller gains access to the sublimar scenes of the upper mountains, are inexpressibly verdant and beautiful. They are fertilized by the deposits of continual inundations in the early spring, and the sun beats down into them with a genial warmth in summer, which brings out millions of flowers of the most beautiful forms and colors, and ripens rapidly the broadest and richest fields of grain. Cuttages of every picturesque and beautiful form, tenanted by the cultivators, the shepherds and herdsmen, crown every little swell in the bottom of the valley, and cling to the declivities of the mountains which rise on either hand. Above them eternal forests of furs and pines wave, feathering over the steepest and most rocky slopes with their somber folly age. Still higher gray precipices rise, and spires and pinnacles, far grander and more picturesque, if not so symmetrically formed, and those constructed by man. Between these there is seen here and there in the background, vast towering masses of white and dazzling snow, which crown the summits of the loftier mountains beyond. Hannibal's determination to carry an army into Italy by way of the Alps, instead of transporting them by galleys over the sea, has always been regarded as one of the greatest undertakings of ancient times. He hesitated for some time whether he should go down their own and meet and give battle to Scipio, or whether he should leave the Roman army to its quarts, and proceed himself directly toward the Alps and Italy. The officers and soldiers of the army, who had now learned something of their destination and of their leader's plans, wanted to go and meet the Romans. They dreaded the Alps. They were willing to encounter a military foe, however formidable, for this was a danger that they were accustomed to and could understand, but their imagination were appalled at the novel and awful images. They formed a falling down precipices of ragged rocks, or of gradually freezing and being buried half alive during the process in eternal snows. Hannibal, when he founded his soldiers were afraid to proceed, called the leading portions of his army together and made them an address. He remonstrated with them for yielding now two unworthy fears, after having successfully met and triumphed over such dangers as they had already incurred. You have surmounted the Pyrenees, said he. You have crossed the Rhône. You are now actually inside of the Alps, which are the very gates of access to the country of the enemy. What do you conceive the Alps to be? They are nothing but high mountains, after all. Suppose they are higher than Pyrenees. They do not reach to the skies. And, since they do not, they cannot be insurmountable. They are surmounted, in fact, every day. They are even inhabited and cultivated, and travelers continually pass over them to and fro. And but a single man can do, an army can do. For an army is only a large number of single men. In fact, to a soldier, who has nothing to carry with him but the implements of war, no way can be too difficult to be surmounted by courage and energy. After finishing his speech, Hannibal, finding his men reanimated and encouraged by what he had said, ordered them to go to their tents and refresh themselves, and prepare to march on the following day. They made no further opposition to going on. Hannibal did not, however, proceed at once directly toward the Alps. He did not know what the plans of Scipio might be, who, it will be recollected, was below him on their own, with the Roman army. He did not wish to waste his time and his strength in the contest with Scipio in goal, but to press on and get across the Alps into Italy as soon as possible. And so, fearing less Scipio should strike across the country, and intercept him if he should attempt to go by the most direct route, he determined to move northwardly, up the river Rhone, till he should get well into the interior, with a view of reaching the Alps ultimately by a more circuitous journey. It was, in fact, the plan of Scipio to come up with Hannibal and attack him as soon as possible. And accordingly, as soon as his horsemen, or rather those who were left alive after the battle, had returned and informed him that Hannibal and his army were near. He put his camp in motion and moved rapidly up the river. He arrived at the place where the Cartagenaeans had crossed a few days after they had gone. The spot was in a terrible state of ruin and confusion. The grass and the herbage were trampled down for a circuit of a mile, and all over the space were spots of black and smoldering remains, where the campfires had been kindled. The tops and branches of trees lay everywhere around, their leaves withering in the sun, and the groves and forests were encumbered with limbs, and rejected trunks, and trees felled and left to our delay. The shore was lined far down the stream with ruins of boats and rafts, with weapons which had been lost or abandoned, and with the bodies of those who had been drowned in the passage or killed in a contest on the shore. These enumerous other vestiges remained, but the army was gone. There were, however, upon the ground groups of natives and other visitors, who had come to look at the spot now destined to become so memorable in history. From these men Scipio learned when and where Hannibal had gone. He decided that it was useless to attempt to pursue him. He was greatly perplexed to know what to do. In the casting of lots Spain had fallen to him, but now that the great enemy, who had come forth to meet, had left Spain altogether, his only hope of intercepting his progress was to sail back into Italy, and meet him as he came down from the Alps into the great valley of the Po. Still, as Spain had been assigned to him as his province, he could not while entirely abandon it. He accordingly sent forward the largest part of his army into Spain to attack the forces that Hannibal had left there, while he himself with a smaller force, went down to the seashore and sailed back to Italy again. He expected to find Roman forces in the valley of the Po, with which he hoped to be strong enough to meet Hannibal as he descended from the mountains, if he should succeed in affecting a passage over them. In the meantime Hannibal went on, drawing nearer and nearer to the ranges of snowy summits, which his soldiers had seen for many days in their eastern horizon. These ranges were very resplendent and grand when the sun went down into the west, for then it shone directly upon them. As the army approached nearer and nearer to them, and gradually withdrew from sight and disappeared, being concealed by intervening summits less lofty but nearer. As the soldiers went on, however, they began to penetrate the valleys, and draw nearer to the awful chasm and precipices among the mountains, and saw the turbid torrents descending from them, their fears revived. It was, however, now too late to retreat. They pressed forward, ascending continually, till their road grew extremely precipitous and insecure, threading its way through almost impassable defiles, with rocked cliffs overhanging them, and snowy summits towering all around. At last they came to a narrow defile, through which they must necessary pass, but which was guarded by large bodies of armed men assembled on the rocks and precipices above, rallied to hurl stones and weapons of every kind upon them, if they should attempt to pass truth. The army halted, Hannibal ordered them to encamp where they were, until he could consider what to do. In the course of the day he learned that the mountaineers did not remain at their elevated posts during the night, on account of the intense cold and exposure, knowing too that it would be impassable for an army to traverse such a path as they were attempting to guard without daylight to guide them. For the road, or rather pathway, which passes through these defiles, follows generally the course of a mountain torrent, which flows through the succession of frightful ravines and chasms, and often passes along on a shelf or projection of the rock, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet from the bed of the stream, which forms and roars far below. There could be, of course, be no hope of passing safely by such a route without the light of day. The mountaineers, therefore, knowing that it was not necessary to guard a pass at night, its own terrible danger being then a sufficient protection, were accustomed to this purse in the evening and descend to regions where they could find shelter and repose, and to return and renew their watch in the morning. When Hannibal learned this, he determined to anticipate them in getting up upon the rocks the next day, and in order to prevent their entertaining any suspicion of his design, he pretended to be making all the arrangements for encamping for the night on the ground he had taken. He accordingly pitched more tents and built, toward evening, a great many fires, and he began some preparations, indicating that it was his intention the next day to force his way through the pass. He moved forward a strong detachment up to a point near the entrance to the pass, and put them in a fortified position there, as if to have them all ready to advance when the proper time should arrive on the following day. The mountaineers, seeing all these preparations going on, looked forward to a conflict on the morrow, and during the night left their positions as usual to descend to places of shelter. The next morning, however, when they began at an early hour to ascend to them again, they were astonished to find all the lofty rocks and cliffs and shelving projections which overhung the pass covered with cartaginians. Hannibal had aroused a strong body of his men at the earliest dawn, and led them up by steep climbing, to the places which the mountaineers had left, so as to be there before them. The mountaineers paused, astonished at this spectacle, and their disappointment and rage were such increased on looking down into the valley below, and seeing there the remainder of the cartaginian army quietly moving through the pass in a long train, safe apparently from any molestations, since friends and not enemies were now in possession of the cliffs above. The mountaineers could not restrain their feelings of excation and anger, but immediately rushed down the declivities which they had in part ascended, and attacked the army in the defile. An awful scene of struggle and confusion ensued. Some were killed by weapons or by rocks rolled down upon them. Others contending together and struggling desperately in places of every narrow foothold, tumbled along down the rugged rocks into the torrent below, and horses, led them with baggage and stores, became frightened and unimaginable, and crowded each other over the most frightful precipices. Hannibal, who was above the higher rocks, looked down upon this scene for a time with the greatest anxiety and terror. He did not dare to descend himself and mingle in the effray, for fear of increasing the confusion. He soon found, however, that it was absolutely necessary for him to interpose, and he came down as rapidly as possible his detachment with him. They descended by oblique and zigzag paths, wherever they could get footing among the rocks, and attacked the mountaineers with great fury. The result was, as he had feared, a great increase at first of the confusion and the slaughter. The horses were more and more terrified by the fresh energy of the combat, and by the resounding of louder shouts and cries, which were made doubly terrific by the echoes and the reverberations of the mountains. They crowded against each other, and fell, horses and men, together, in masses, over the cliffs to the rugged rocks below, where they lay in confusion, some dead, and others dying, berthling carelessly in agony, or vainly endeavouring to crawl away. CHAPTER VI The mountaineers were, however, conquered and driven away at last, and the pass was left clear. The Carthaginian column was restored to order. The horses that had not fallen were calmed and quieted. The baggage which had been thrown down was gathered up, and the wounded men were placed on litters, rudely constructed on the spot, that they might be borne onto a place of safety. In a short time all were ready to move on, and the march was, accordingly, recommenced. There was no further difficulty. The column advanced in a quiet and orderly manner, until they had passed the defile. At the extremity of it, they came to a spacious fort belonging to the natives. Hannibal took possession of this fort, and paused for a little time there to rest and refresh his men. One of the greatest difficulties encountered by a general in conducting an army through difficult and dangerous roads is that of providing food for them. An army can transport its own food only a very little way. Men traveling over smooth roads can only carry provisions for a few days, and where the roads are as difficult and dangerous as the passes of the Alps, they can scarcely carry any. The commander must, accordingly, find subsistence in the country through which he is marching. Hannibal had, therefore, now not only to look out for the safety of his men, but their food was exhausted, and he must take immediate measures to secure a supply. The lower slopes of lofty mountains afford usually abundant sustenance for flocks and herds. The showers which are continually falling there, and the moisture which comes down the sides of the mountains through the ground, keep the turf perpetually green, and sheep and cattle love to pasture upon it. They climb to great heights, finding the herbage finer and sweeter the higher they go. Thus the inhabitants of mountain ranges are almost always shepherds and herdsmen. Grain can be raised in the valleys below, but the slopes of the mountains, though they produce grass to perfection, are too steep to be tilled. As soon as Hannibal had got established in the fort, he sent around small bodies of men to seize and drive in all the cattle and sheep that they could find. These men were, of course, armed in order that they might be prepared to meet any resistance which they might encounter. The mountaineers, however, did not attempt to resist them. They felt that they were conquered, and they were accordingly disheartened and discouraged. The only mode of saving their cattle, which was left to them, was to drive them as fast as they could into concealed and inaccessible places. They attempted to do this, and while Hannibal's parties were ranging up the valleys all around them, examining every field and barn and sheepfold that they could find, the wretched and despairing inhabitants were flying in all directions, driving the cows and sheep, on which their whole hope of subsistence depended, into the fastnesses of the mountains. They urged them into wild thickets and dark ravines and chasms and over dangerous glaciers, and up the steepest ascents, wherever there was the radius prospect of getting them out of the plunderer's way. These attempts, however, to save their little property, were but very partially successful. Hannibal's marauding parties kept coming home, one after another, with droves of sheep and cattle before them, some larger and some smaller, but making up a vast amount in all. Hannibal subsisted his men three days on the food thus procured for them. It requires an enormous store to feed 90 or 100,000 men, even for three days. Besides, in all such cases as this, an army always wastes and destroys, far more than they really consume. During these three days, the army was not stationary, but was moving slowly on. The way, though still difficult and dangerous, was at least open before them, as there was now no enemy to dispute their passage. So they went on, rioting upon the abundant supplies they had obtained and rejoicing in the double victory they were gaining over the hostility of the people and the physical dangers and difficulties of the way. The poor mountaineers returned to their cabins, ruined and desolate. For mountaineers who have lost their cows and their sheep have lost their all. The Alps are not all in Switzerland. Some of the most celebrated peaks and ranges are in a neighboring state called Savoy. The whole country is, in fact, divided into small states called cantons at the present day, and similar political divisions seem to have existed in the time of the Romans. In his march onward from the pass, which has been already described, Hannibal, accordingly, soon approached the confines of another canton. As he was advancing slowly into it, with the long train of his army winding up with him through the valleys, he was met at the borders of this new state by an embassage sent from the government of it. They brought with them fresh stores of provisions and a number of guides. They said that they had heard of the terrible destruction which had come upon the other cantons in consequence of their effort to oppose his progress and that they had no intention of renewing so vain an attempt. They came therefore, they said, to offer Hannibal their friendship and their aid. They had brought guides to show the army the best way over the mountains and a present of provisions, and to prove the sincerity of their professions they offered Hannibal hostages. These hostages were young men and boys and sons of the principal inhabitants whom they offered to deliver into Hannibal's power, to be kept by him until he should see that they were faithful and true in doing what they offered. Hannibal was so accustomed to stratagem and treachery himself that he was at first very much at a loss to decide whether these offers and professions were honest and sincere or whether they were only made to put him off his guard. He thought it possible that it was their design to induce him to place himself under their direction so that they might lead him into some dangerous defile or labyrinth of rocks from which he could not extricate himself and where they could attack and destroy him. He, however, decided to return them a favorable answer but to watch them very carefully and to proceed under their guidance with the utmost caution and care. He accepted of the provisions they offered and took the hostages. These last he delivered into the custody of a body of his soldiers and they marched on with the rest of the army. Then directing the new guides to lead the way, the army moved on after them. The elephants went first with a moderate force for their protection preceding and accompanying them. Then came long trains of horses and meals loaded with military stores and baggage and finally the foot soldiers followed marching irregularly in a long column. The whole train must have extended many miles and must have appeared from any of the immanences around like an enormous serpent winding its way torturously through the wild and desolate valleys. Hannibal was right in his suspicions. The embassage was a stratagem. The men who sent it had laid an ambuscade in a very narrow pass concealing their forces in thickets and in chasms and in nooks and corners among the rugged rocks and when the guides had led the army well into the danger a sudden signal was given and these concealed enemies rushed down upon them in great numbers breaking into their ranks and renewing the scene of terrible uproar tumult and destruction which had been witnessed in the other defile. One would have thought that the elephants being so unwieldy and so helpless in such a scene would have been the first objects of attack but it was not so. The mountaineers were afraid of them. They had never seen such animals before and they felt for them a mysterious awe not knowing what terrible powers such enormous beasts might be expected to wield. They kept away from them therefore and from the horsemen and poured down upon the head of the column of foot soldiers which followed in the rear. They were quite successful at the first onset. They broke through the head of the column and drove the rest back. The horses and elephants in the meantime moved forward bearing the baggage with them so that the two portions of the army were soon entirely separated. Hannibal was behind with the soldiers. The mountaineers made good their position and as night came on the contest ceased for in such wilds as these no one can move at all except with the light of day. The mountaineers however remained in their place dividing the army and Hannibal continued during the night in a state of great suspense and anxiety with the elephants and the baggage separated from him and apparently at the mercy of the enemy. During the night he made vigorous preparations for attacking the mountaineers the next day. As soon as the morning light appeared he made the attack and he succeeded in driving the enemy away so far at least as to allow him to get his army together again. He then began once more to move on. The mountaineers however hovered about his way and did all they could to molest and embarrass his march. They concealed themselves in embuscades and attacked the Carthaginians as they passed. They rolled stones down upon them or discharged spears and arrows from immanences above and if any of Hannibal's army became for any reason detached from the rest they would cut off their retreat and then take them prisoners or destroy them. Thus they gave Hannibal a great deal of trouble. They harassed his march continually without presenting at any point a force where he could meet and encounter in battle. Of course Hannibal could no longer trust to his guides and he was obliged to make his way as he best could. Sometimes right but often wrong and exposed to a thousand difficulties and dangers which those acquainted with the country might have easily avoided. All this time the mountaineers were continually attacking him in bands like those of robbers sometimes in the van and sometimes in the rear wherever the nature of the ground or the circumstances of the marching army afforded them an opportunity. Hannibal persevered however through all these discouragements protecting his men as far as it was in his power but pressing earnestly on until in nine days he reached the summit. By the summit however is not meant the summit of the mountains but the summit of the pass that is the highest point which it was necessary for him to attain in going over. In all mountain ranges there are depressions which are in Switzerland called necks and the pathways and roads over the ranges lie always in these. In America such a depression and a ridge of land if well marked and decided is called a notch. Hannibal attained the highest point of the call by which he was to pass over in nine days after the great battle. There were however of course lofty peaks and summits towering still far above him. He encamped here two days to rest and refresh his men. The enemy no longer molested him. In fact parties were continually coming into the camp of men and horses that had got lost or had been left in the valleys below. They came in slowly some wounded others exhausted and spent by fatigue and exposure. In some cases horses came in alone. They were horses that had slipped or stumbled and fallen among the rocks or had sunk down exhausted by their toil and had thus been left behind and afterward recovering their strength had followed on led by a strange instinct to keep to the tracks which their companions had made and thus they rejoined the camp at last in safety. In fact one great reason for Hannibal's delay at his encampment on or near the summit of the pass was to afford time for all the missing men to join the army again that had the power to do so. Had it not been for this necessity he would doubtless have descended some distance at least to a more warm and sheltered position before seeking repose. A more gloomy and desolate resting place than the summit of an alpine pass can scarcely be found. The bear and barren rocks are entirely destitute of vegetation and they have lost besides the sublime and picturesque forms which they assume further below. They spread in vast naked fields in every direction around the spectator rising in gentle ascents bleak and dreary. The surface whitened as if bleached by the perpetual rains. Storms are in fact almost perpetual in these elevated regions. The vast cloud which to the eye of the shepherd in the valley below seems only a fleecy cap resting serenely upon the summit or slowly floating along the sides is really a driving mist or cold and stormy rain howling dismally over interminable fields of broken rocks as if angry that it can make nothing grow upon them with all its watering. Thus there are seldom distant views to be obtained and everything near presents a scene of simple drearingness and desolation. Hannibal soldiers thus found themselves in the midst of a dismal scene in their lofty encampment. There is one special source of danger too in such places as this which the lower portions of the mountains are less exposed to and that is the entire obliteration of the pathway by falls of snow. It seems almost absurd to speak of pathway in such regions where there is no turf to be worn and the boundless fields of rocks ragged and hard will take no trace of footsteps. There are however generally some faint traces of way and where these fail entirely. The track is sometimes indicated by small piles of stones placed at intervals along the line of a route and unpracticed eye would scarcely distinguish these little landmarks in many cases from accidental heaps of stones which lie everywhere around. They however render a very essential service to the guides and to the mountaineers who have been accustomed to conduct their steps by similar aids in other portions of the mountains. But when snow begins to fall all these and every other possible means of distinguishing the way are soon entirely obliterated. The whole surface of the ground or rather of the rocks is covered and all landmarks disappear. The little monuments become nothing but slight inequalities in the surface of the snow, undistinguishable from a thousand others. The air is thick and murky and shuts off alike all distant prospects and the shape and conformation of the land that is near. The bewildered traveler has not even the stars to guide him as there is nothing but dark falling flakes descending from an impenetrable canopy of stormy clouds to be seen in the sky. Hannibal encountered a snowstorm while on the summit of the pass and his army were very much terrified by it. It was now November. The army had met with so many detentions and delays that their journey had been protracted to a late period. It would be unsafe to attempt to wait till this snow should melt again as soon therefore as the storm ended and the clouds cleared away so as to allow the men to see the general features of the country around the camp was broken up and the army put in motion. The soldiers marched through the snow with great anxiety and fear. Men went before to explore the way and to guide the rest by flags and banners which they bore. Those who went first made paths, of course, for those who followed behind as the snow was trampled down by their footsteps. Notwithstanding these aids, however, the army moved on very laboriously and with much fear. At length, however, after descending a short distance, Hannibal, perceiving that they must soon come in sight of the Italian valleys and planes which lay beyond the Alps, went forward among the pioneers who had charge of the banners by which the movements of the army were directed and as soon as the open country began to come into view he selected a spot where the widest prospect was presented and halted his army there to let them take a view of the beautiful country which now lay before them. The Alps are very precipitous on the Italian side. The descent is very sudden from the cold and icy summits to a broad expanse of the most luxuriant and sunny plains. Upon these plains, which were spread out in a most enchanting landscape at their feet, Hannibal and his soldiers now looked down with exultation and delight. Beautiful lakes, studded with still more beautiful islands, reflected the beams of the sun. An endless succession of fields in sober autumnal colors with the cottages of the laborers and stacks of grains scattered here and there upon them and rivers meandering through verdant meadows gave variety and enchantment to the view. Hannibal made an address to his officers and men congratulating them on having arrived at last so near to a successful termination of their toils. The difficulties of the way, he said, are at last surmounted, and these mighty barriers that we have scaled are the walls not only of Italy but of Rome itself. Since we have passed the Alps, the Romans will have no protection against us remaining. It is only one battle when we get down upon the plains or at most two and the great city itself will be entirely at our disposal. The whole army were much animated and encouraged both by the prospect which presented itself to their view and by the words of Hannibal. They prepared for the descent anticipating little difficulty but they found on recommencing their march that their troubles were by no means over. The mountains are far steeper on the Italian side than on the other and it was extremely difficult to find paths by which the elephants and the horses and even the men could safely descend. They moved on for some time with great labor and fatigue until at length Hannibal looking on before found that the head of the column had stopped and the whole train behind was soon jammed together the ranks halting along the way in succession as they found their path blocked up by the halting of those before them. Hannibal sent forward to ascertain the cause of the difficulty and found that the van of the army had reached a precipice down which it was impossible to descend. It was necessary to make a circuit in hopes of finding some practicable way of getting down. The guides and pioneers went on leading the army after them and soon got upon a glacier which lay in their way. There was fresh snow upon the surface covering the ice and concealing the crevasses as they are termed that is the great cracks and fissures which extend in the glaciers down through the body of the ice. The army moved on trampling down the new snow and making at first a good roadway by their footsteps but very soon the old ice and snow began to be trampled up by the hooves of the horses and the heavy tread of such vast multitudes of armed men. It softened to a great depth and made the work of toiling through it an enormous labor. Besides the surface of the ice and snow sloped steeply and the men and beasts were continually falling or sliding down and getting swallowed up in avalanches which their own weight set in motion or in concealed crevasses where they sank to rise no more. They however made some progress though slowly and with great danger. They at last got below the region of the snow but here they encountered new difficulties in the abruptness and ruggedness of the rocks and in the zigzag and tortuous direction of the way. At last they came to a spot where their further progress appeared to be entirely cut off by a large mass of rock which it seemed necessary to remove in order to widen the passage sufficiently to allow them to go on. The Roman historian says that Hannibal removed these rocks by building great fires upon them and then pouring on vinegar which opened seams and fissures in them by means of which the rocks could be split and pried to pieces with wedges and crowbars. On reading this account the mind naturally pauses to consider the probability of its being true as they had no gunpowder in those days they were compelled to resort to some such method as the one above described for removing rocks. There are some species of rock which are easily cracked and broken by the action of fire others resisted. There seems however to be no reason obvious why vinegar should materially assist in the operation. Besides we cannot suppose that Hannibal could have had at such a time in place any very large supply of vinegar on hand. On the whole it is probable that if any such operation was performed at all it was on a very small scale and the results must have been very insignificant at the time though the fact has since been greatly celebrated in history. In coming over the snow and in descending the rocks immediately below the army and especially the animals connected with it suffered a great deal from hunger. It was difficult to procure forage for them of any kind. At length however as they continued their descent they came first into the region of forests and soon after to slopes of grassy fields descending into warm and fertile valleys. Here the animals were allowed to stop and rest and renew their strength by abundance of food. The men rejoice that their toils and dangers were over and descending easily the remainder of the way they encamped at last safely on the plains of Italy. In Modesto, California for LibreVox. Chapter 7 of Hannibal. This is a LibreVox recording. All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org. Hannibal by Jacob Abbott. Chapter 7 Hannibal in the north of Italy. When Hannibal's army found themselves on the plain of Italy and sat down quietly to repose they felt the effects of their fatigues and exposures far more sensibly that they had done under the excitement which they naturally felt were actually upon the mountains. They were in fact in miserable condition. Hannibal told a Roman officer whom he afterward took prisoner than more than 30,000 perished on the way in crossing the mountains. Some in the battles which were fought in the passes and a greater number still probably from exposure to fatigue and cold and from falls among the rocks and glaciers and diseases produced by destitution and misery. The remnants of the army which was left on reaching the plain were emaciated, sickly, ragged and spiritless, far more inclined to lie down and die than to go on and undertake the conquest of Italy and Rome. After some days however they began to recruit. Although they had been half-starved among the mountains they had now plenty of awesome food. They repaired their tired garments and their broken weapons. They told with one another about the terrific scenes for which they had been passing and the dangers which they had mounted and thus gradually strengthening their impressions of the greatness of the exploits they had performed. They began soon to awaken in each other's breasts an ambition to go on and undertake the accomplishment of other deeds of daring and glory. We left Scipio with his army at the mouth of the rune about to set sail for Italy with a part of his force while the rest of it was sent on towards Spain. Scipio sailed along the coast by general and thanks to Pisa where he landed. He stopped a little while to recruit his soldiers after the voyage and in the meantime sent orders to all the Roman forces then in the north of Italy to join his standard. He hoped in this way to collect force strong enough to encounter Hannibal. This arrangement being made he marched to the northward as rapidly as possible. He knew in what condition Hannibal's army had descended from the Alps and wished to attack them before they should have time to recover from the effects of their privations and sufferings. He reached the port before he saw anything of Hannibal. Hannibal in the meantime was not idle. As soon as his men were in a condition to move he began to act upon the tribes that he found at the foot of the mountains offering his friendship to some and attacking others. He thus concurred those who attempted to resist him moving all the time gradually southward toward the port. That river has numerous branches and among them is one named Tissinus. It was on the banks of this river that the two armies at last came together. Both generals must have felt some degree of solicitude in respect to the result of the contest which was about to take place. Scipio knew very well Hannibal's terrible efficiency as a warrior and he was himself a general of great distinction and a Roman so that Hannibal had no reason to anticipate a very easy victory. Whatever doubts or fears however general officers may feel on the eve of an engagement it is always considered very necessary to conceal them entirely from the men and to animate and encourage the troops with the most undoubted confidence that they will gain the victory. Both Hannibal and Scipio accordingly made addresses to their respective armies, at least so say the historians of those times, each one expressing to his followers the certainty that the other side would easily be beaten. The speech attributed to Scipio was somewhat as follows. I wish to say a few words to you soldiers before we go into battle. It certainly would not be necessary if I had now under my command the same troops that I took with me to the mouth of the Rhon. They knew the Carthaginian there and would not have feared them here. A body of our horsemen met and attacked a large body of theirs and defeated them. We then advanced with our whole force toward the encampment in order to give them battle. They however abandoned the ground and retreated before we reached the spot acknowledging by the flight their own fear and our superiority. If you had been with us there and had witnessed these facts there would have been no need that I should say anything to convince you now how easily you are going to defeat this Carthaginian foe. We have had a war with this same nation before. We conquered them then both by land and sea and when finally peace was made we required them to pay us tribute and we continued to exact it from them from 20 years. They are a concrete nation and now this miserable army has forced this way insanely over the earth just to throw itself into our hands. They meet us reduced in numbers and exhausted in resources and strength more than half of the army perished in the mountains and those that survive are weak, dispirited, raped and deceased and yet they are compelled to meet us. If there was any chance for retreat or any possible way for them to avoid necessity of a battle they would avail themselves of it but there is not. They are hemmed in by the mountains which are now to them an impassable wall for they have no strength to scale them again. They are not real enemies. They are the mere remnants and shadows of enemies. They are wholly disheartened and discouraged. Their strength and energy both of soul and body being spent and gone through the cold, the hunger and the scarlet misery they have endured. Their joints are benarmed, their sinews tiffened and their forms emaciated. Their armor is shattered and broken, their horses are leamed and all their equipments worn out and ruined so that really what most I fear is that the world with refuses the glory of the victory and say that it was the Alps that conquered Hannibal and not the Roman army. Easy as the victory is to be however we must remember that there is a great deal at stake in the contest. It is not merely for glory that we are now about to contend if Hannibal conquers he will march to Rome and our wives, our children and all that we hold dear will be at his mercy. Remember this and go into the battle feeling that the fate of Rome itself is depending upon the result. An oration is attributed to Hannibal too on the occasion of this battle. He showed however his characteristic ingenuity and spirit of confidence in the way in which he managed to attract strong attention to what he was going to say by the manner in which he introduced it. He formed his army into a circle as if to witness a spectacle. He then brought into the center of this circle a number of prisoners that he had taken among the Alps. Perhaps there were the hostages which had been delivered to him as related in the preceding chapter. Whoever there were however whether hostages or captives taken in the battles which had been fought in the deep fields Hannibal had brought them with his army down into Italy and now introducing them into the center of the circle which the army formed he threw down before them such arms as they were accustomed to used in their native mountains and asked them whether they would be willing to take those weapons and fight each other on condition that each one who killed his antagonist should be restored to his liberty and have a horse and ammo given him so that he could return home with honor. The barbarous monsters said readily that they would and seized the arms with the greatest ability. Two or three pairs of combatants were allowed to fight one of each pair was killed and the other said at liberty according to the promise of Hannibal. The combats excited the greatest interest and awakened the strongest enthusiasm among the soldiers who witnessed them when this effect has been sufficiently produced. The rest of the prisoners were sent away and Hannibal addressed the vast string of soldiers as follows. I have intended soldiers in what you have now seen not merely to amuse you but to give you a picture of your own situation. You are hemmed in on the right and left by two seas and you have not so much as a single ship upon either of them. Then there is the pole before you and the Alps behind. The pole is a deeper and more rapid and turbulent river than the rune and has for the Alps it was with the utmost difficulty that you passed over them when you were in full strength and vigor. There are an insurmountable wall to you now. You're therefore shot in like our prisoners on every side and have no hope of life and liberty but in battle and victory. The victory however will not be difficult. I see wherever I look among you a spirit of determination and courage which I am sure will make you conquerors. The troops which you are going to contend against are mostly fresh recruits that know nothing of the discipline of the camp and can never successfully confront such war-worn veterans as you. You all know each other well and me. I was in fact a pupil with you for many years before I took the command. But Scipio's forces are strangers to one another and to him and consequently have no common bond of sympathy. And as for Scipio himself, his very commission as a Roman general is only six months old. Think too what a splendid and prosperous carrier victory will happen before you. It will conduct you to Rome. It will make you masters of one of the most powerful and wealthiest cities in the world. Thus far you have fought your battles only for glory or for dominion. Now you will have something more substantial to reward your success. There will be great treasures to be divided among you if we can care. But if we are defeated, we are lost. Hamed in as we are on every side, there is no place that we can reach by flight. There is therefore no such alternative as flight left to us. We must conquer. It is hardly probable that Hannibal could have really and honestly failed all the confidence that he expressed in his harringers to his soldiers. He must have had some fears. In fact, in all end prices undertaken by man, the indications of success and the hopes based upon them will fluctuate from time to time and cause his confidence in the result to ebb and flow, so that bright anticipation of success and triumph will alternate in his heart with feelings of discouragement and despondency. This effect is experienced by all, by the energetic and decided as well as by the timid and the feltry. The former, however, never allow these fluctuations of hope and fear to influence their action. They consider well the substantial grounds for expecting success before commencing their undertaking, and then go steadily forward under all aspects of the sky, when it shines or when it rains, till they reach the end. The inefficient and undecided can act only under the stimulus of prison hope. The end they aim at must be visibly before them all the time. If for a moment it passes out of view, their motive is gone and they can do no more, till, by some changing circumstances, it comes inside again. Hannibal was energetic and decided. The time for him to consider whether he would encounter the hostility of the Roman Empire arose to the highest possible degree was when his army was drawn up upon the banks of the Iberus before they crossed it. The Iberus was his rabbicon. The line once overstepped, there was to be no further faltering. The difficulties which arose from time to time to throw a cloud over his prospects only seemed to stimulate him to fresh energy and to awaken new, though still a calm and steady resolution. It was so at the Pyrenees, it was so at the Rhon, it was so among the Alps, where the difficulties and daggers would have induced almost any other commander to have returned. And it was still so, now that he found himself shot in on every hand by the stand boundaries of northern Italy, which he could not possibly hope again to pass, and the whole disposable force of the Roman Empire commanded to by one of the consuls concentrated before him. The imminent danger produced no faltering and apparently no fear. The armies were not yet inside of each other. They were in fact yet on opposite sides of the river Poe. The Roman commander concluded to march his troops across the river and advanced in search of Hannibal, who was still at some miles distance. After considering the various means of crossing the stream, he decided finally on building a bridge. Military commanders generally throw some sort of bridge across a stream of water lying in their way. If it is too deep to be easily folded, unless indeed it is so wide and rapid as to make the construction of the bridge difficult or impracticable. In this later case, they cross as well as they can by means of boats and rafts and by swimming. The Poe, though not very large stream at this point, was too deep to be folded and seep you accordingly build the bridge. The soldiers cut down the trees which grew in the forest along the banks and after trimming off tops and branches, they rolled the trunks into the water. They placed these trunks side by side with others laid transversely and pinned down upon the top. Thus they formed rafts which they placed in a line across the stream, securing them well to each other and to the banks. This made the foundation for the bridge and after this foundation was covered with other materials so as to make the upper surface a convenient roadway, the army were conducted across it and then a small detachment of soldiers was stationed at each extremity of it as a guard. Such a bridge has this and says a very good temporary purpose and in still water, as for example of the narrow lakes or very sluggish streams where there is very little current, a floating structure of this kind is sometimes built for permanent service. Such bridges will not however stand on broad and rapid rivers liable to floods. The pressure of the water alone in such cases would very much endanger all the fastnings. And in cases where drift wood or ice is brought down by the stream, the floating masses not being able to pass under the bridge would accumulate above it and would soon bear upon it with so enormous a pressure that nothing could withstand its force. The bridge would be broken away and the whole accumulation bridge drift wood and ice would be born irresistibly down the stream together. Scipio's bridge however, answered very well for his purpose. His army passed over it in safety. When Hannibal heard of this, he knew that the battle was at hand. Hannibal was himself at this time about five miles distant. While Scipio was at work upon the bridge, Hannibal was employed mainly as he had been all the time since his descent from the mountains in the subjugation of the various petty nations and tribes north of the pole. Some of them were well disposed to join his standard. Others were allies of the Romans and wished to remain so. He made treaties and sent help to the former and dispatched detachment of troops to intimidate and subdue the latter. When however, he learned that Scipio had crossed the river, he ordered all these detachments to come immediately in and he began to prepare in earnest for the contest that was impending. He called together an assembly of his soldiers and announced to them finally that the battle was now night. He renewed the words of encouragement that he had spoken before and in addition to what he then said, he now promised the soldiers rewards in land in case they proved victorious. I will give you each a form, said he, wherever you choose to have it, either in Africa, Italy or Spain. If, instead of the land, any of you shall prefer to receive rather an equivalent in money, you should have the reward in that form and then you can return home and live with your friends as before the war under circumstances which would make you objects of envy to those who remain behind. If any of you would like to live in cartridge, I will have you made free citizens so that you can live there in independence and honor. But what security would there be for the faithful fulfillment of these promises? In modern times, such security is given by bonds with pecuniary penalties or by deposit of titles to property in responsible hands. In ancient days, they managed differently. The promissor bound himself by some solemn and formal mode of adoration accompanied in important cases with certain ceremonies which were supposed to seal and confirm the obligation assumed. In this case, Hannibal brought a lamb in the presence of the assembled army. He held it before them with his left hand while with his right he grasped a heavy storm. He then called aloud upon the gods, implying them to destroy him as he was about to slay the lamb if he failed to perform fast fully and fully the pledges that he had made. He then struck the poor lamb a heavy blow with the stone. The animal fell dead at his feet and Hannibal was then forthbound in the opinion of the army by a very solemn obligation indeed to be faithful in fulfilling his word. The soldiers were greatly animated and excited by these promises and were in haste to have the contest come on. The Roman soldiers, it seems, were in a different mood of mind. Some circumstances have occurred which they considered as ban almonds and they were very much dispirited and depressed by them. It is astonishing that men should ever allow their minds to be affected by such holy accidental occurrences as these were. One of them was this. A wolf came into their camp from one of the forests near and after wanting several men made his escape again. The other was more trifling still. A swarm of bees flew into the encampment and lighted upon a tree just over Scipio's tent. This was considered, for some reason or other, a sign that some calamity was going to befall them and the men were accordingly intimidated and disheartened. They consequently looked forward to the battle with uneasiness and anxiety while the army of Hannibal anticipated it with eagerness and pleasure. The battle came on at last very suddenly and at a moment when neither party were expecting it. A large detachment of both armies were advancing toward the position of the other near the river Ticinus to a reconnoiter. When the met and the battle began, Hannibal advanced with great impetuosity and sent at the same time a detachment around to attack his enemy in the rear. The romance soon began to fall into confusion. The horsemen and foot soldiers got entangled together. The men were trampled upon by the horses and the horses were frightened by the men. In the midst of this scene, Scipio received a womb, a console with a dignitary of very high consideration. He was in fact a sort of semi-king. The officers and all the soldiers, so fast as they heard that the console was wanted, were terrified and dismayed and the romance began to retreat. Scipio had a young son, named also Scipio, who was then about 20 years of age. He was fighting by the side of his father when he received his womb. He protected his father, got him into the center of a compact body of cavalry and moved slowly off the ground, those in the rear facing toward the enemy and beating them back as they pressed on in pursuit of them. In this way, they reached their camp. Here they stopped for the night. They had fortified the place and, as night was coming on, Honeyball thought it not prudent to press on and attack them there. He waited for the morning. Scipio, however, himself wanted and his army discouraged, thought it not prudent for him to wait till the morning. At midnight he put his whole force in motion on the retreat. He kept the campfires burning and did everything else in his power to prevent the Cartagenaes observing any indications of his departure. His army marched secretly and silently till they reached the river. They were crossed it by the bridge they had built and then, cutting away the fastenings by which the different rafts were held together, the structure was at once destroyed and the materials of which it was composed floated away, a mere mass of runes down the stream. From the ticinus they floated, we may imagine, into the pole and then down the pole into the Adriatic Sea, where they drifted upon the west of waters till they were at last, one after another, driven by storms upon the sandy shores. And of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Hannibal. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sławek Ksienzycki. Hannibal by Jacob Abbott. Chapter 8. Diapinans. As soon as Hannibal was surprised in the morning that Sipio and his forces had left their ground, he pressed on after them, very earnest to overtake them before they should reach the river. But he was too late. The main body of the Roman army had got over. There was however a detachment of a few hundred men who had been left on Hannibal's side of the river to guard the bridge until all the army should have passed and then to help in cutting it away. They had accomplished this before Hannibal's arrival, but had not had time to contrive any way to get across the river themselves. Hannibal took them all prisoners. The condition and prospects of both the Roman and Cartagena cause were entirely changed by this battle and the retreat of Sipio across the pole. All the nations of the north of Italy, who had been subjects or allies of the Romans, now turned to Hannibal. They sent embassies into his camp, offering him their friendship and alliance. In fact, there was a large body of gulls in the Roman camp who were fighting under Sipio at the Battle of Tysinus, who deserted his standard immediately afterward and came over in a mass to Hannibal. They made this revolt in the night and instead of stealing away secretly, they raised a projectile tumult, killed the guards, filled the encampment with their shouts and outcries and created for a time an awful scene of terror. Hannibal received them, but he was too sagacious to admit such a treacherous horde into his army. He treated them with great consideration and kindness and dismissed them with presents that they might all go to their respective homes, charging them to exert their influence in his favor among the tribes to which they severely belonged. Hannibal's soldiers too were very much encouraged by the commencement they had made. The army made immediate preparations for crossing the river. Some of the soldiers built rafts, others went up the stream in search of places to fort. Some swam across. They could adopt these or any other modes in safety, for the Romans made no stand on the opposite bank to oppose them, but moved rapidly on as fast as Sipio could be carried. His wounds began to inflame and were extremely painful. In fact, the Romans were dismayed at the danger which now threatened them. As soon as news of these events reached the city, the authorities there sent a dispatch immediately to Sicily to recall the other council. His name was Sempranius. It will be recollected that when the lots were cast between him and Sipio, it fell to Sipio to proceed to Spain with a view to arresting Hannibal's march while Sempranius went to Sicily and Africa. The object of this movement was to threaten and attack the Carthaginians at home in order to destruct their attention and prevent their sending any fresh forces to aid Hannibal and perhaps even to compel them to recall him from Italy to defend their own capital. But now that Hannibal had not only passed the Alps, but had also crossed the Poe and was marching toward Rome, Sipio himself disabled and his army flying before him, they were obliged at once to abandon the plan of threatening Carthage. They sent with all dispatch an order to Sempranius to hasten home and assist in the defense of Rome. Sempranius was a man of a very prompt and impetuous character with great confidence in his own powers and very ready for action. He came immediately into Italy, recruited new soldiers for the army, put himself at the head of his forces and marched northward to join Sipio in the valley of the Poe. Sipio was suffering great pain from his wounds and could do but little toward directing the operations of the army. He had slowly retreated before Hannibal and fever and pain of his wounds being greatly exasperated by the motion of traveling. In this manner he arrived at the Trebia, a small stream flowing northward into the Poe. He crossed this stream and finding that he could not go any further on account of the torturing pain to which it put him to be moved, he halted his army, marked out an encampment, threw up fortifications around it and prepared to make a stand. To his great relief Sempranius soon came up and joined him here. There were now two generals. Napoleon used to say that one bad commander was better than two good ones. So essential is it to success in all military operations to secure that promptness and confidence and decision which can only exist where action is directed by one single mind. Sempranius and Sipio disagreed as to the proper course to be pursued. Sempranius wished to attack Hannibal immediately. Sipio was in favor of delay. Sempranius attributed Sipius reluctance to give battle to the dejection of mind and discouragement produced by his wound or to a feeling of envy lest he, Sempranius, should have the honor of conquering the Cartaginians while he himself was helpless in his stand. On the other hand, Sipio thought Sempranius inconsiderate and reckless and disposed to rush heedlessly into a contest with a foe whose powers and resources he did not understand. In the meantime, while the two commanders were thus divided in opinion, some skirmishes and small engagements took place between the attachments from the two armies in which Sempranius thought that the Romans had the advantage. This excited his enthusiasm more and more and he became extremely desirous to bring on a general battle. He began to be quite out of patience with Sipio's caution and delay. The soldiers, he said, were full of strength and courage, all eager for the combat, and it was absurd to hold them back on account of the feebleness of one sick man. Besides, said he, of what use can it be to delay any longer? We are us ready to meet the Cartaginians now, as we shall ever be. There is no third council to come and help us and what a disgrace it is for us, Romans, who, in the former war, let our troops to the very gates of Cartage to allow Hannibal to bear sway over all the north of Italy, while we retreat gradually before him, afraid to encounter now a force that we have always conquered before. Hannibal was not long in learning, through his spies, that there was this difference of opinion between the Roman generals, and that Sempranius was full of a presumptuous sort of ardor, and he began to think that he could contrive some plan to draw the latter out into battle under circumstances in which he would have to act at a great disadvantage. He did contrive such a plan. It succeeded admirably, and the case was one of those numerous instances which occurred in the history of Hannibal, of successful stratagem which led the Romans to say that his leading traits of character were treachery and cunning. Hannibal's plan was in a word to attempt to draw the Roman army out of its encampment on a dark, cold and stormy night in December and get them into the river. This river was the Trebia. It flowed north into the Poe, between the Roman and Cartaginian camps. His scheme, in detail, was to send a part of his army over the river to attack the Romans in the night or very early in the morning. He hoped that by this means Sempranius would be induced to come out of his camp to attack the Cartaginians. The Cartaginians were then to fly and recross the river, and Hannibal hoped that Sempranius would follow excited by the ardor of pursuit. Hannibal was then to have a strong reserve of the army that had remained all the time in warmth and safety, to come out and attack the Romans with unimpaired strength and vigor, while the Romans themselves would be benarmed by the cold and wet and disorganized by the confusion produced in crossing the stream. A part of Hannibal's reserve were to be placed in an ambush gate. There were some meadows near the water which were covered in many places with tall grass and bushes. Hannibal went to examine the spot and found that this shrubbery was high enough for even horsemen to be concealed in it. He determined to place a thousand foot soldiers and a thousand horsemen here, the most efficient and courageous in the army. He selected them in the following manner. He called one of his Lieutenant Generals to the spot, explained somewhat of his design to him, and then asked him to go and choose from the cavalry and the infantry a hundred each the best soldiers he could find. These two hundred were then assembled and Hannibal, after surveying them with looks of approbation and pleasure, said, Yes, you are the man I want, only instead of two hundred I need two thousand. Go back to the army and select and bring to me each of you nine men like yourselves. It is easy to be imagined that the soldiers were pleased with this commission and that they executed it faithfully. The whole force thus chosen was soon assembled and stationed in the thickets above described where they lay in ambush ready to attack the Romans after they should pass the river. Hannibal also made arrangements for leaving a large part of his army in his own camp ready for battle with orders that they should partake of food and refreshments and keep themselves warm by the fires until they should be called up. All things being thus ready, he detached a body of horsemen to cross the river and see if they could provoke the Romans to come out of their camp and pursue them. Go, said Hannibal to the commander of this detachment, pass the stream, advance to the Roman camp, assail the guards and when the army forms and comes out to attack you retreat slowly before them back across the river. The detachment did as it was ordered to do. When they arrived at the camp which was soon after break of day for it was a part of Hannibal's plan to bring the Romans out before they should have had time to breakfast, Sempranus at the first alarm called all the soldiers to arm supposing that the whole cartaginian force was attacking them. It was a cold and stormy morning and the atmosphere being filled with rain and snow but little could be seen. Column after column of horsemen and of infantry marched out of the camp. The cartaginians retreated. Sempranus was greatly excited at the idea of so easily driving back the assailants and as they retreated he pressed on in pursuit of them. As Hannibal had anticipated he became so excited in the pursuit that he did not stop at the banks of the river. The cartaginian horsemen plunged into the stream in their retreat and the Romans, food soldiers and horsemen together followed on. The stream was usually small but it was now swelled by the rain which had been falling all the night. The water was of course intensely cold. The horsemen got through tolerably well but the food soldiers were all terribly drenched and benumped and as they had not taken any food that morning and had come forth on a very sudden call and without any sufficient preparation they felt the effect of the exposure in the strongest degree. Still they pressed on. They ascended the bank after crossing the river and when they had formed again there and were moving forward in pursuit of their still-flying enemy suddenly the whole force of Hannibal's reserves strong and vigorous just from their tent and their fires burst upon them. They had scarcely recovered from the astonishment and the shock on this unexpected onset when the 2000 concealed in the ambush gate came selling forth in the storm and assailed the Romans in the rear with frightful shouts and out cries. All these movements took place very rapidly only a very short period elapsed from the time that the Roman army officers and soldiers were quietly slipping in their camp or rising slowly to prepare for the routine of an ordinary day before they found themselves all drawn out in battle array some miles from their encampment and surrounded and hammed in by their foes. The events succeeded each other so rapidly as to appear to the soldiers like a dream but very soon their wet and freezing clothes their limbs benumped and stiffened the sleet which was driving along the plane the endless lines of cartaginian infantry hamming them in on all sides and the columns of horsemen and of elephants charging upon them convinced them that their situation was one of dreadful reality. The calamity too which threatened them was a vast extent as well as imminent and terrible for though the stratagem of Hannibal was very simple in its plan and management still he had executed it on a great scale and had brought out the whole roman army there were it is said about 40 000 that crossed the river and about an equal number in the cartaginian army to oppose them such a body of combatants covered of course a large extent of ground and the conflict that ensued was one of the most horrible scenes of the money that Hannibal assisted in enacting the conflict continued for many hours the romans getting more and more into confusion all the time the elephants of the cartaginians that is the few that now remained made great havoc in their ranks and finally after a combat of some hours the whole army was broken up and fled some portions in compact bodies as their officers could keep them together and others in hopeless and inextricable confusion they made their way back to the river which they reached at various points up and down the stream in the meantime the continued rain had swollen the water still more the low lands were overflowed the deep places concealed and the broad expanse of water in the center of the stream wailed in boiling and turbid eddies whose surface was roughened by the december breeze and dotted everywhere with the drops of rain still falling when the roman army was thoroughly broken up and scattered the cartaginians gave up the further prosecution of the contest they were too wet cold and exhausted themselves to feel any ardor in the pursuit of their enemies vast numbers of the romans however attempted to recross the river and were swept down and destroyed by the merciless flood whose force they had not strength enough remaining to withstand other portions of the troops lay hit in lurking places to which they had retreated until night came on and then they made rafts on which they contrived to float themselves back across the stream honeybald troops were too wet and cold and exhausted to go out again into the storm and so they were unmolisted in these attempts notwithstanding this however great numbers of them were carried down the stream and lost it was now december too late for honeybald to attempt to advance much further that season and yet the way before him was open to the happenings by the defeat of sempronius for neither he nor sepio could now hope to make another stand against him till they should receive new reinforcements from rome during the winter months honeybald had various battles and adventures sometimes with portions and detachments of the roman army and sometimes with the native tribes he was sometimes in great difficulty for want of food for his army until at length he bribed the governor of a castle where a roman granary was kept to deliver it up to him and after that he was well supplied the natives of the country were however not at all well disposed toward him and in the course of the winter they attempted to impede his operations and to harass his army by every means in their power finding his situation uncomfortable he moved on toward the south and at length the time in that inclement as the season was he would cross the happenings by looking at the map of italy it will be seen that the great valley of depot extends across the whole north of italy the valley of the arno and of the ombre lie south of it separated from it by a part of the happening chain this southern valley was atruria honeybald decided to attempt to pass over the mountains into atruria he thought he should find there a warmer climate and inhabitants more well disposed toward him besides being so much near room but though honeybald conquered the alps the happenings conquered him a very violent storm arose just as he reached the most exposed place among the mountains it was intensely cold and the wind blew the hail and snow directly into the faces of the troops so that it was impossible for them to proceed they halted and turned their backs to the storm but the wind increased more and more and was attended with terrific thunder and lightning which filled the soldiers with alarm as they were at such an altitude as to be themselves enveloped in the clouds from which the pills and flashes were emitted unwilling to retreat honeybald ordered the army to encamp on the spot in the best shelter they could find they attempted accordingly to pitch their tents but it was impossible to secure them the wind increased to a hurricane the tent poles were unmanageable and the canvas was carried away from its fastenings and sometimes split or blown into rocks by its flapping in the wind the poor elephants that is all that were left of them from previous battles and exposures sank down under these intense cold and died one only remained alive honeybald ordered a retreat and the army went back into the valley of the pole but honeybald was eagle at ease here the natives of the country were very wary of his presence his army consumed their food ravaged their country and destroyed all their peace and happiness honeybald suspected them of a design to poison him or assassinate him in some other way he was continually watching and taking precautions against these attempts he had a great many different dresses made to be used as disguises and false hair of different colors and fashion so that he could alter his appearance at pleasure this was to prevent any spy or assassin who might come into his camp from identifying him by any description of his dress and appearance still notwithstanding these precautions he was ill at ease and at the very earliest practicable period in the spring he made a new attempt to cross the mountains and was now successful on descending the southern declivities of the apennines he learned that a new roman army under a new council was advancing toward him from the south he was eager to meet this force and was preparing to press forward at once by the nearest way he found however that this would lead him across the lower part of the valley of the arno which was here very broad and though usually passable was now overflowed in consequence of the swelling of the waters of the river by the melting of the snows upon the mountains the whole country was now in fact a vast expanse of marshes and fence still honeybald concluded to cross it and in the attempt he involved his army in difficulties and dangers as great almost as he had encountered upon the alps the waters were rising continually they filled all the channels and spread over extended plains they were so turbid too that everything beneath the surface was concealed and the soldiers waiting in them were continually sinking into deep and sudden channels and into box of mire where many were lost they were all exhausted and worn out by the wet and cold and the long continuance of their exposure to it they were four days and three nights in this situation as their progress was of course extremely slow the man during all this time had scarcely any sleep and in some places the only way by which they could get any repose was to lay their arms and their baggage in the standing water so as to build by this means a sort of coach or platform on which they could lie honeybald himself was sick too he was attacked with a violent inflammation of the eyes and the sight of one of them was in the end destroyed he was not however so much exposed as the other officers for there was one elephant left of all those that had commenced the march in spain and honeybald rode this elephant during the four days march through the water there were guides and attendants to proceed him for the purpose of finding a safe and practicable road and by their aid with the help of the animals sagacity he got safely through end of chapter 8 recording by Sławek Księżycki