d to cross
reached the opposite bank; but the water kept rising every moment, while
at the same time the bed of the river at the ford was deepened by the
wheels and the efforts of the horses. A carriage stuck fast; others did
the same; and the stoppage became general.

Meanwhile the day was advancing; the men were exhausting themselves in
vain efforts: hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the
Viceroy at length found himself necessitated to order his artillery and
all his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The
owners had scarcely time to part from their effects; while they were
selecting from them the articles which they most needed, and loading
horses with them, a multitude of soldiers hastened up; they fell in
preference upon the vehicles of luxury; they broke in pieces and
rummaged every thing, revenging their destitution on this wealth, their
privations on these superfluities, and snatching them from the Cossacks,
who looked on at a distance.

It was provisions of which most of them were in quest. They threw aside
embroidered clothes, pictures, ornaments of every kind, and gilt
bronzes, for a few handfuls of flour. In the evening it was a singular
sight to behold the riches of Paris and Moscow, the luxuries of two of
the largest cities in the world, lying scattered and despised on the
snow of the desert.

At the same time most of the artillerymen spiked their guns in despair,
and scattered their powder about. Others laid a train with it as far as
some ammunition waggons, which had been left at a considerable distance
behind our baggage. They waited till the most eager of the Cossacks had
come up to them, and when a great number, greedy of plunder, had
collected about them, they threw a brand from a bivouac upon the train.
The fire ran and in a moment reached its destination: the waggons were
blown up, the shells exploded, and such of the Cossacks as were not
killed on the spot dispersed in dismay.

A few hundred men, who were still called the 14th division, were opposed
to these hordes, and sufficed to keep them at a respectful distance till
the next day. All the rest, soldiers, administrators, women and
children, sick and wounded, driven by the enemy's balls, crowded the
bank of the torrent. But at the sight of its swollen current, of the
sharp and massive sheets of ice flowing down it, and the necessity of
aggravating their already intolerable sufferings from cold by plung