In the Hungarian war it was made a law, that the booty should be equally distributed, but that soon ceased. Still those who were fortunate enough to make great gains, found it advisable to give a share to the officers of their company. This common interest in the booty, as well as the necessity of maintaining themselves by requisition, in remote countries, developed in great perfection partisan service. There were not only whole divisions of troops, which performed in the armies the service of marauding corps, as for example those of Holk and Isolani in the Imperial, but there were also individual leaders of companies, who selected the most expert people for this lucrative employment. A marauding party, departing on a secret expedition, must consist of an uneven number to bring good luck. These parties stole far into the country to plunder a rich man, to fall upon a small city, or intercept transports of goods or money, and to bring away with them cattle and provisions. There was often an agreement made with the enemy's garrisons in the neighbourhood, as to what was to be spared in the districts common to them. Every kind of cunning was practised in such expeditions; they knew now to imitate the report of heavy artillery, by firing a hand-gun, doubly loaded, through an empty barrel; they used shoes with reversed soles, and caused the horses to be shod in the same manner, the feet of stolen cattle were covered with shoes, and a sponge was put in the pigs' food to which a packthread was fastened. The soldiers disguised themselves as peasants or women, and paid spies amongst the citizens and country people of the neighbourhood. Their messengers ran hither and thither with despatches, and were called in camp language "_feldtauben_" (field doves); they carried these despatches in their ears rolled up as small balls, fastened them in the hair of shaggy dogs, enclosed them in a clod of earth, or sewed them with green silk between the leaves of a branch of oak, that they might be able to throw them away, without suspicion, in time of danger.[26] These despatches were written in gipsy language or gibberish, in foreign characters, and if there were runaway students in the companies, they were written perhaps in French with Greek letters; they employed, for these purpose, a simple kind of short-hand writing, displacing the letters of the words, or agreeing that only the middle letter of the words should have signification.[27] The transition from such partisan service to becoming dishonourable marauders and freebooters was easy. In the beginning of the war, the newly raised regiment of Count Merode was so reduced by long marches and bad nourishment, that it could hardly set its guard; it dissolved almost entirely, on the march, into stragglers, who lay under the hedges and in the byways, or sneaking about the army with defective weapons, and without order. After that time, the stragglers, whom the