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 readiest
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 ninety or a hundred thousand men,
even for three days; besides, in all such cases as this, an army
always waste and destroy 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 no