+45.+ When the assembly had been dismissed, the reconnoitring party of Numidians returned in headlong flight, after losing more than half their numbers. Not far from the camp they had fallen in with a party of Roman horse, who had been sent out by Publius on the same errand; and an engagement took place with such fury on either side, that the Romans and Celts lost a hundred and forty men, and the Numidians more than two hundred. After this skirmish, the Romans pursued them up to the Carthaginian entrenchments: and having surveyed it, they hastened back to announce to the Consul the presence of the enemy. As soon as they arrived at the Roman camp with this intelligence, Publius put his baggage on board ship, and marched his men up the bank of the river, with the earnest desire of forcing the enemy to give him battle. But at sunrise on the day after the assembly, Hannibal having stationed his whole cavalry on the rear, in the direction of the sea, so as to cover the advance, ordered his infantry to leave the entrenchment and begin their march; while he himself waited behind for the elephants, and the men who had not yet crossed the river. [Sidenote: The passage of the elephants.] +46.+ The mode of getting the elephants across was as follows. They made a number of rafts strongly compacted, which they lashed firmly two and two together, so as to form combined a breadth of about fifty feet, and brought them close under the bank at the place of crossing. To the outer edge of these they lashed some others and made them join exactly; so that the whole raft thus constructed stretched out some way into the channel, while the edges towards the stream were made fast to the land with ropes tied to trees which grew along the brink, to secure the raft keeping its place and not drifting down the river. These combined rafts stretching about two hundred feet across the stream, they joined two other very large ones to the outer edges, fastened very firmly together, but connected with the others by ropes which admitted of being easily cut. To these they fastened several towing lines, that the wherries might prevent the rafts drifting down stream, and might drag them forcibly against the current and so get the elephants across on them. Then they threw a great deal of earth upon all the rafts, until they had raised the surface to the level of the bank, and made it look like the path on the land leading down to the passage. The elephants were accustomed to obey their Indian riders until they came to water, but could never be induced to step into water: they therefore led them upon this earth, putting two females in front whom the others obediently followed. When they had set foot on the rafts that were farthest out in the stream, the ropes were cut which fastened these to the other rafts, the towing lines were pulled taut by the wherries, and the elephants, with the rafts on which they stood, were quickly towed away from the mound of earth.