In this way many
horses and several riders perished. To transport the heavy cannon
and howitzers pine logs were split in the centre, the parts hollowed
out, and the guns sunks into grooves. A long string of mules, in
single file, were attached to the ponderous machines of war, to
drag them up the slippery ascent. The mules soon began to fail, and
then the men, with hearty good-will, brought their own shoulders into
the harness--a hundred men to a single gun. Napoleon offered the
peasants two hundred dollars for the transporation of a twelve-pounder
over the pass. The love of gain was not strong enough to lure them
to such tremendous exertions. But Napoleon's fascination over the
hearts of his soldiers was a more powerful impulse. With shouts
of encouragement they toiled at the cables, successive bands of
a hundred men relieving each other every half hour. High on those
craggy steeps, gleaming through the midst, the glittering bands of
armed men, like phantoms appeared. The eagle wheeled and screamed
beneath their feet. The mountain goat, affrighted by the unwonted
spectacle, bounded away, and paused in bold relief upon the cliff
to gaze upon the martial array which so suddenly had peopled the
solitude.
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