20 " In the morning about the dawn of day, I witnessed the most dreadful and the most affecting scenes which it is possible to con- ceire ; namely, the unhappy inhabitants drawing upon some vehicles all that they had been able to save from the conflagration. The soldiers, having robbed them of their horses, the men and women were slowly and pain- fully dragging along these little carts. some of them contained an infirm mother, others a paralytic old man, and others the miserable wrecks of half-consumed furniture; children, halt naked, followed these interesting groups. Affliction, to which their age is commonly a stranger, was impressed even on their features; and when the soldiers approached them, they ran crying into the arms of their mothers."
THE RETREAT. "The soldiers, vainly struggling with the snow and the wind which rushed upon them with the violence of a whirlwind, could no longer distinguish the road, and, falling into the ditches which bordered it, there found a grave, Others pressed on towards the end of their journey, scarcely able to drag themselves along, badly moun- ted, badly clothed, with nothing to eat, nothing to drink, shivering with cold, and groaning with pain. Becoming selfish through despair, they affor-
