re insufficient
to carry all the horses, a great many of the animals were made to enter
the river attached by ropes to the vessels. The heavier craft started
highest up, in order that they might to some extent break the roughness
of the waves and facilitate the passage of the canoes.

The din was prodigious. Thousands of men tugged at the oars, the roughly
made canoes were dashed against each other and often upset, while from
the opposite bank rose loudly the defiant yells of the natives, prepared
to dispute to the last the landing of the flotilla. Suddenly these cries
assumed a different character. A mass of smoke was seen to rise from the
tents of the enemy's camp, and Hanno's division poured down upon their
rear. The Arecomici, taken wholly by surprise, were seized with a panic,
and fled hastily in all directions, leaving the bank clear for the
landing of Hannibal. The whole of the army were brought across at once
and encamped that night on the river.

In the morning Hannibal sent off five hundred Numidian horse to
reconnoitre the river below, and ascertain what Scipio's army, which was
known to have landed at its mouth, was doing. He then assembled his army
and introduced to them some chiefs of the tribes beyond the Alps, who
had a day or two before arrived in the camp with the agents he had
sent to their country. They harangued the soldiers, an interpreter
translating their speeches, and assured them of the welcome they
would meet in the rich and fertile country beyond the Alps, and of the
alacrity with which the people there would join them against the Romans.

Hannibal himself then addressed the soldiers, pointed out to them that
they had already accomplished by far the greatest part of their journey,
had overcome every obstacle, and that there now remained but a few
days' passage over the mountains, and that Italy, the goal of all their
endeavours, would then lie before them.

The soldiers replied with enthusiastic shouts, and Hannibal, after
offering up prayers to the gods on behalf of the army, dismissed the
soldiers, and told them to prepare to start on the following day. Soon
after the assembly had broken up the Numidian horse returned in great
confusion, closely pressed by the Roman cavalry, who had been sent by
Scipio to ascertain Hannibal's position and course. The hostile cavalry
had charged each other with fury. A hundred and forty of the Romans and
two hundred of the Numidians were slain.

Hanniba