Many a flat-boat was pounded into
pulpwood while unloading the stores, though the men waded
in waist-deep and carried all the heavy bundles on their
heads and shoulders. When it came to the artillery, it
meant a boat lost for every single piece of ordnance
landed. Nor was even this the worst; for, strange as it
may seem, there was, at first, more risk of foundering
ashore than afloat. There were neither roads nor yet the
means to make them. There were no horses, oxen, mules,
or any other means of transport, except the brawny men
themselves, who literally buckled to with anchor-cable
drag-ropes--a hundred pair of straining men for each
great, lumbering gun. Over the sand they went at a romp.
Over the rocks they had to take care; and in the dense,
obstructing scrub they had to haul through by main force.
But this was child's play to what awaited them in the
slimy, shifting, and boulder-strewn bog they had to pass
before reaching the hillocks which commanded Louisbourg.
The first attempts here were disastrous.
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