in healing, and he was not able to appear at the head of the army; and thus the Romans were paralysed, whilst Hannibal for two months and a half, ever since his march over the St. Bernard, had made use of his time to strengthen his position, and to restore his army, especially as to horses. He also took from the Romans their magazines, so that they became very hard pressed. Sempronius, when the two armies had joined, looked upon this state of things as highly disgraceful, and insisted upon giving battle; he said that one ought to fight as soon as possible, and not let the Carthaginians seem formidable: Scipio, on the other hand, was cautious, and would not give his consent to this. Hannibal, who knew all that was passing, was very much bent on bringing them to an engagement; for so long as they lay where they were, he could not go into winter-quarters; and he also wished to get the Romans out of the way, that the Gauls might thus be encouraged to declare themselves. He was about two (German) miles south of Piacenza, on the right bank of the Trebia, and the Romans on the other side: he now enticed them on by small skirmishes, in which he let them gain seeming advantages. The river Trebia, in the year 1799, became noted for the battle which Macdonald lost against Suwarow: on that occasion, I gathered exact information concerning it. The locality is very remarkable, and quite tallies with the description of Polybius. It is a mountain torrent with many arms, very broad, and straggling through thickets and heaps of gravel: there are many islets in it in summer; in winter, when the snow melts, or after heavy rain, these are quite flooded over. It is not deep, so that it can always be forded: the banks are overgrown some way up with shrubs. In these, Hannibal placed troops in ambush, and Sempronius thought that he was afraid; but it was Hannibal’s plan to get the Romans to cross the river. It was about Christmas tide, and so he did not wish his soldiers to wade through the river, which was cold as ice: that he wanted the Romans to do. They fell into the snare. Hannibal, on the other hand, had large fires lighted in his camp the evening before, (brandy there was none at that time, except in Egypt, where certainly they knew how to distil, as the whole process is depicted on the walls at Thebes); he also made the men take a good meal of warm food, and rub themselves before the fire with oil; thus they became quite warm and brisk. There was a sharp snow-storm,--the cold is in Lombardy not less severe than in Germany,--the Romans had now the madness to wade during the night through the river, which was so swollen by the snow, that they were up to the chin in water: they got quite benumbed, and they had the pelting storm right in their faces. The fight was a fierce one, as indeed there were thirty thousand Romans against twenty thousand of the enemy; but the Carthaginian cavalry quickly routed that of the Romans,