Some miles of our route lay through the Forest of Champigny; but here the road was impassable, for it had thawed during the small hours and frozen again, making the causeway one solid sheet of ice. Wherever we could we travelled along the edges; but it was dreadfully slow work, and the horses themselves, poor beasts, were afraid. While we were loitering at this funeral pace, I witnessed a sight that I never shall forget. We fell in with an ammunition train, about half a mile in length, conveying war material of all kinds to the positions before Paris. Our own waggon we had to draw in among the trees for safety, as the horses were falling every minute; and now when we looked along the line, we could see as many as ten horses on the ground at once. Sometimes two of the animals would slip down side by side, and fall again and again whenever they attempted to pull on their traces. Nay, more, I saw a team of four horses all come down simultaneously, not once, but twice. No description, indeed, could exaggerate the confusion of the scene,--drivers shouting, waggons slipping, and horses falling in all directions; while the more their guides interfered the more they fell, until the poor brutes became so terrified, that they trembled all over from fright. The ground was amazingly hard. In one place I saw a heavy ammunition waggon drawn by four horses, when coming down a slight incline, slip five or six yards along the road, and then glide off into the ditch, without a single wheel having turned on its axle. As it was now evident that they could not proceed through the Forest without inflicting grave and perhaps fatal injuries on their cattle, the men began to pick out the middle of the road where the horses trod, and strewed along it coal dust, which they carried with them on purpose. This made the road sufficiently passable to allow of the train to advance. But, meanwhile, it was about two hours before we of the convoy could move, though when we did we rattled on at a spanking pace. From time to time we met numbers of newly organised cavalry,--with droves of horses led by halters; and of these steeds I was ready to lay any odds that some were Irish bred. Men and horses were on their way to the front to replace the maimed, killed, and wounded, and to contribute themselves to a similar contingent.