144 THK WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, wind) lied wildly in all directions. Waggons ^'^' were overturned, and of those stores of food and forage which had been brought up to camp, great quantities were destroyed or spoilt. The hospital marquees presented so great a breadth of canvas to the rage of the blast that, in spite of every effort to uphold them, they were almost the first tents to fall ; and thus not only men fit for duty, but the wounded, the sick, the dying, became ex- posed all at once to the biting cold of the blast, and deluged with rain and sleet.(i*^) The trenches were quickly flooded. The soldiery were unable to cook their food, for no camp-fires could be lit. To this miserable condition of things no remedy could at once be applied ; for the storm made it hard in the extreme to move from one spot to another, and not only men on foot, but the horses of riders attempting to make head against the blast were again and again overthrown. {^^) Under the fall of snow which began when the storm was abating many laid themselves down without having tasted food, and some, benumbed by cold, were found dead the next morning in their tents.(^^) But the mischiefs and sufferings thus imme- diately inflicted by the storm were as nothing to the pressure of those ulterior wants which might result from the loss of supplies. Amongst the twenty -one English vessels wrecked, was the Prince, a ship ' containing everything that was ' most wanted : warlike stores of every description, ' surgical instruments, guernsey frocks, flannel ' drawers, woollen stockings and socks, boots, shoes.
