nd then, being turned bottom
upward, the outside was shaped in such a manner as to make it glide
easily through the water. So convenient is this mode of making boats,
that it is practiced, in cases where sufficiently large trees are
found, to the present day. Such boats are now called canoes.

There were plenty of large trees on the banks of the Rhone. Hannibal's
soldiers watched the Gauls at their work, in making boats of them,
until they learned the art themselves. Some first assisted their new
allies in the easier portions of the operation, and then began to fell
large trees and make the boats themselves. Others, who had less skill
or more impetuosity chose not to wait for the slow process of
hollowing the wood, and they, accordingly, would fell the trees upon
the shore, cut the trunks of equal lengths, place them side by side in
the water, and bolt or bind them together so as to form a raft. The
form and fashion of their craft was of no consequence, they said, as
it was for one passage only. Any thing would answer, if it would only
float and bear its burden over.

In the mean time, the enemy upon the opposite shore looked on, but
they could do nothing to impede these operations. If they had had
artillery, such as is in use at the present day, they could have fired
across the river, and have blown the boats and rafts to pieces with
balls and shells as fast as the Gauls and Carthaginians could build
them. In fact, the workmen could not have built them under such a
cannonading; but the enemy, in this case, had nothing but spears, and
arrows, and stones, to be thrown either by the hand, or by engines far
too weak to send them with any effect across such a stream. They had
to look on quietly, therefore, and allow these great and formidable
preparations for an attack upon them to go on without interruption.
Their only hope was to overwhelm the army with their missiles, and
prevent their landing, when they should reach the bank at last in
their attempt to cross the stream.

If an army is crossing a river without any enemy to oppose them, a
moderate number of boats will serve, as a part of the army can be
transported at a time, and the whole gradually transferred from one
bank to the other by repeated trips of the same conveyances. But when
there is an enemy to encounter at the landing, it is necessary to
provide the means of carrying over a very large force at a time; for
if a small division were to go over first alone,