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"I tell you what it is, mates, I have been thinking this here matter over, and when I sees what tremendous prices are being charged for grub here, I concluded there must be a big thing to be made in the way of carrying. Now we have got our five riding-horses, and the three baggage-horses, that makes eight.
Urging our horses into a smart trot, we soon arrived alongside of them; and, on inquiring what it was that had caused them to remain so long at Sutter's, and also how it was that they had neither the baggage-horses nor, apparently, any provisions with them, Lacosse gave us this explanation.
I found, in fact, when I came to the river’s side that the track reappeared upon the opposite bank, plainly showing that the stream had been fordable at this place. Now, however, in consequence of the late rains the river was quite impracticable for baggage-horses.
So ends the visit. In two or three hours our party was ready; the servants, the Tatar, the mounted Suridgees, and the baggage-horses, altogether made up a strong cavalcade. The accomplished Mysseri, of whom you have heard me speak so often, and who served me so faithfully throughout my Oriental journeys, acted as our interpreter, and was, in fact, the brain of our corps.
Our pace was commonly very slow, for the baggage-horses served us for a drag, and kept us to a rate of little more than five miles in the hour, but now and then, and chiefly at night, a spirit of movement would suddenly animate the whole party; the baggage-horses would be teased into a gallop, and when once this was done, there would be such a banging of portmanteaus, and such convulsions of carpet-bags upon their panting sides, and the Suridgees would follow them up with such a hurricane of blows, and screams, and curses, that stopping or relaxing was scarcely possible; then the rest of us would put our horses into a gallop, and so all shouting cheerily, would hunt, and drive the sumpter beasts like a flock of goats, up hill and down dale, right on to the end of their journey.
Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, namely, my Lord Viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading the baggage-horses.
Their supplies were quite insufficient for the journey, and they were now free from the necessity of accommodating their pace to that of the baggage-horses. Their progress would, indeed, be slower than it would have been had they journeyed alone, but time was a matter of no importance to them.
In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable victory at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and jumbling them up with the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live fortification which was found useful to the troops, but which I should think was not agreeable to the horses.
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