text:  The mountain sides not yet cleared by centuries of laborious industry presented a continual forest furrowed at every hollow by headlong Alpine torrents; bridges there were none to cross these perpetually recurring obstacles; provisions scanty at all times in those elevated solitudes were then nowhere to be found having been hid by the affrighted inhabitants on the approach of the invaders; and a powerful army of mountaineers occupied the entrance of the defiles defended with desperate valour the gates of their country and when dispersed by the superior discipline and arms of Hannibal's soldiers still beset the ridges above their line of march and harassed his troops by continual hostility