The soldiers as usual responded to the words of their beloved general with shouts of acclamation, and with renewed spirits prepared to meet the difficulties which still lay before them.
The next morning the march was renewed.

The snow lay deep on the track, and the soldiers found that, great as had been the difficulties of the ascent, those of the descent were vastly greater, for the slopes of the Alps on the Italian side are far steeper and more abrupt than are those on the French.

Every step had to be made with care; those who strayed in the slightest from the path found the snow gave way beneath their feet and fell down the precipice beside them.
Many of the baggage animals thus perished; but at last the head of the column found itself at the foot of the steep descent in a ravine with almost perpendicular walls, amid whose foot was in summer occupied by a mountain stream.

Into the depth of this ravine the rays of the sun never penetrated, and in it lay a mass of the previous year's snow which had never entirely melted, but which formed with the water of the torrent a sheet of slippery ice.
The newly formed snow prevented the troops from seeing the nature of the ground, and as they stepped upon it they fell headlong, sliding in their armour down the rapidly sloping bed of ice, many dashing out their brains or breaking their limbs against the great boulders which projected through it.

The cavalry next attempted the passage, but with even less success, for the hoofs of the horses broke through the hard upper crust of the old snow and the animals sank in to their bellies.
Seeing that it was impossible to pass this obstacle, Hannibal turned back the head of the column until they reached the top of the ascent down which they had just come.