[!-- Marker --] LESSON LIII.
PER' IL OUS, hazardous; dangerous.
DE FILES', narrow passages.
PREC' I PIC ES, steep descents.
SOL'I TUDE, lonely places.
AM MU NI' TION, military stores, as powder, balls, &c.
DRA GOONS, mounted soldiers.
SUM' MIT, top; highest point.
AV A LANCHE', snow-slip.
CROUCH' ED, cringed.
AD VANCE', forward; proceed.
BE NUMB' ED, deprived of feeling.
EX PLOITS', heroic deeds.
IL LUS' TRATES, explains; makes clear.
HE RO'IC, brave; fearless.
UN FLINCH'ING, determined; resolute.
BAY' O NET, a short, pointed instrument of iron, or broad dagger, fitted to the barrel of a gun. It is so called, because the first bayonets were made at Bayonne, in France.
NAPOLEON'S ARMY CROSSING THE ALPS.
1. When Napoleon was carrying war into Italy, he ordered one of his officers, Marshal Macdonald, to cross the Splugen with fifteen thousand soldiers, and join him on the plains below. The Splugen is one of the four great roads which cross the Alps from Switzerland to Italy.
2. When Macdonald received the order, it was about the last of November, and the winter storms were raging among the mountain passes. It was a perilous undertaking, yet he must obey; and the men began their terrible march through narrow defiles and overhanging precipices, six thousand feet up, up among the gloomy solitudes of the Alps.
3. The cannon were placed on sleds drawn by oxen, and the ammunition was packed on mules. First came the guides, sticking their long poles in the snow, in order to find the path; then came workmen to clear away the drifts; then the dragoons, mounted on their most powerful horses, to beat down the track; after which followed the main body of the army.
4. They encountered severe storms and piercing cold. When half-way up the summit, a rumbling noise was heard among the cliffs. The guides looked at each other in alarm; for they knew well what it meant. It grew louder and louder. "An avalanche! an avalanche!" they shrieked, and the next moment a field of ice and snow came leaping down the mountain, striking the line of march, and sweeping thirty dragoons in a wild plunge below. The black forms of the horses and their riders were seen for an instant struggling for life, and then they disappeared forever.
5. The sight struck the soldiers with horror; they crouched and shivered in the blast. Their enemy was not now flesh and blood, but wild winter storms; swords and bayonets could not defend them from the desolating avalanche. Flight or retreat was hopeless; for all around lay the drifted snow, like a vast winding-sheet. On they must go, or death was certain, and the brave men struggled forward.
6. "Soldiers!" exclaimed their commander, "you are called to Italy; your general needs you. Advance and conquer, first the mountain and the snow, then the plains and the enemy!" Blinded by the winds, benumbed with the cold, and far beyond the reach of aid, Macdonald and his men pressed on. Sometimes a whole company of soldiers were suddenly swept away by an avalanche.
7. On one occasion, a poor drummer, crawling out from the mass of snow, which had torn him from his comrades, began to beat his drum for relief. The muffled sound came up from his gloomy resting-place, and was heard by his brother soldiers; but none could go to his rescue. For an hour, he beat rapidly, then the strokes grew fainter, until they were heard no more, and the poor drummer laid himself down to die. Two weeks were occupied in this perilous march, and two hundred men perished in the undertaking.