ce, went down to the
sea-shore 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 effecting a passage over them.

In the mean time 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 in the west, for then it shone directly upon
them. As the army approached nearer and nearer to them, they gradually
withdrew from sight and disappeared, being concealed by intervening
summits less lofty, but nearer. As the soldiers went on, however, and
began to penetrate the valleys, and draw near to the awful chasms 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 rugged cliffs overhanging them, and
snowy summits towering all around.

At last they came to a narrow defile through which they must
necessarily pass, but which was guarded by large bodies of armed men
assembled on the rocks and precipices above, ready to hurl stones and
weapons of every kind upon them if they should attempt to pass
through. 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 impossible for an army to traverse such
a pass 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 a 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 foams
and roars far below. There could, 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 the pass at night--its own terrible danger being then a
sufficien