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The departure of the squaws had been so hurried by flying bullets that they left large quantities of buffalo robes, a considerable quantity of dried meat and other plunder on the field. They took all the pack-animals with them, however, so that the bucks were unable to take the property with them when they left, and it subsequently fell into the hands of the white men.
In wheeling barrows coolies perform the work of beasts of burthen. As pack-animals camels, mules and donkeys have the preference, so that although the "noble animal" is to be met with almost everywhere, he is not considered indispensable as in Western lands. He is unhonoured, ill cared for and very cheap.
Colonel Charles Lewis, with some Augusta and Botetourt troops, had left Camp Union on September sixth to drive the cattle and four hundred pack-animals to the mouth of the Elk, where he was to make canoes for transporting provisions to the Ohio.
At the last moment we had modified the original plan to suit everybody. The horsemen encumbered by pack-animals were to push on as rapidly as possible in order to reach by nightfall the settlement where dwelt the Italian friend. Once there they could feel themselves reasonably safe.
Where waterways do not exist, and traffic must necessarily be carried overland, the highways are either narrow paths paved with large blocks of stone and suitable only for wheelbarrows and pack-animals, or tracks picked out at random over a width of perhaps a hundred yards, along which lumbering, ill-constructed and springless carts plough their ways, and strings of pack-animals wend slowly to and fro.
The headwaters of the rivers are usually reached by pack-trains of mules and oxen. The primitive ox-cart also comes in where the trail is not too bad. One hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty pounds is a good load for the pack-animals, and none of the cases should weigh more than fifty or sixty pounds. Each case should be marked with its contents and gross and net weight in kilos.
We disarmed them and ordered them to walk back until they fell in with our cavalry, or the infantry, which was being brought forward in trucks. As we bowled along in pursuit the scene reminded me of descriptions in the novels of Sienkiewicz or Erckmann-Chatrian. The road was littered with equipment of every sort, disabled pack-animals, and dead or dying Turks.
A sore back is the easiest thing in the world to induce, three hours' chafing will turn the trick, and once it is done you are in trouble for a month. No precautions or pains are too great to take in assuring your pack-animals against this. On a pinch you will give up cheerfully part of your bedding to the cause.
"They're loaded down like pack-animals, their shoulders are rounded, they're wearied to death, but they go on and go on.... There's no flash of sword or splendour of uniforms. They're only very tired men determined to carry on. The war will be won by tired men who can never again pass an insurance test."
These formed an atajo or pack-train, guided and driven by the two beardless men of the party, who seemed to understand mule driving as thoroughly as if they had been trained to the calling of the arriero; and perhaps so had they been. The other two took no trouble with the pack-animals, but rode on in front, conversing sans souci, and in a somewhat jocular vein.
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