The men piled up on the drays allowed themselves to be jolted in silence, and were livid with the morning chill. They all wore canvas trousers, and their naked feet were thrust into wooden shoes; but the rest of their attire was left to the fancy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were hideously disaccordant, for nothing is more mournful than the harlequin garb of rags. There were crushed hats, oilskin caps, frightful woollen night-caps, and side by side with the blouse, an out-at-elbow black coat Some wore women's bonnets, and others had baskets, as head-gear; hairy chests were visible, and through the rents of the clothes tattooing could be distinguished,--temples of love, burning hearts, and cupids,--but ringworm and other unhealthy red spots might also be noticed. Two or three had passed a straw rope through the side rail of the dray, which hung down like a stirrup and supported their feet; while one of them held in his hand and raised to his mouth something like a black stone, which he seemed to be gnawing,--it was bread he was eating. All the eyes were dry, and either dull or luminous with a wicked light. The escort cursed, but the chained men did not breathe a syllable; from time to time the sound of a blow dealt with a stick on shoulder-blades or heads could be heard. Some of these men yawned; the rags were terrible; their feet hung down, their shoulders oscillated, their heads struck against each other, their irons rattled, their eyeballs flashed ferociously, their fists clenched or opened inertly like the hands of death, and in the rear of the chain a band of children burst into a laugh. This file of vehicles, whatever their nature might be, was lugubrious. It was plain that within an hour a shower might fall, that it might be followed by another, and then another, that the ragged clothing would be drenched; and that once wet through, these men would not dry again, and once chilled, would never grow warm any more; that their canvas trousers would be glued to their bones by the rain, that water would fill their wooden shoes, that lashes could not prevent the chattering of teeth, that the chain would continue to hold them by the neck, and their feet would continue to hang; and it was impossible not to shudder on seeing these human creatures thus bound and passive beneath the cold autumnal clouds, and surrendered to the rain, the breezes, and all the furies of the atmosphere, like trees and stones. The blows were not even spared the sick who lay bound with ropes and motionless in the seventh vehicle, and who seemed to have been thrown down there like sacks filled with wretchedness.