At day-break we discovered from the hills near the camp, that the enemy's rear was greatly harassed by our cavalry. Sometimes they obliged them to halt, and disordered their ranks: at other times, the enemy facing about, charged with all their cohorts at once, and forced our men to give ground; who, wheeling again as soon as they began to march, failed not to renew the attack. At this sight, the legionary soldiers, running up and down the camp, complained that the enemy would escape out of their hands, and the war necessarily be prolonged. They addressed themselves to the centurions and military tribunes, and desired them to beg of Caesar not to spare them; that they feared neither danger nor fatigue, and were ready to pass the river as the horse had done. Caesar, moved by their alacrity and entreaties, though he saw some danger in exposing his army to the rapidity of a deep river, judged it yet proper to attempt and make trial of the passage. Having therefore withdrawn from every company such as were weak of body, or of less courage than the rest, he left them in the camp with the army happily passed the river, by the assistance of a double line of cavalry, placed above and below them. Some of the infantry were carried away by the violence of the current; but they were picked up and saved by the horse below them; so that no one man was lost. Having passed the river without loss, he drew up his army in order of battle, and began to pursue the enemy in three lines: and such was the ardour of the soldiers, that notwithstanding the army was obliged to make a circuit of six miles, notwithstanding the time necessarily lost in crossing the river, they got up at the ninth hour of the day to the enemy, who had set out at midnight.
