Kitap 1
54
As things were reduced to such a strait and all the roads were blocked by the Afranian soldiers and horsemen and the bridges could not be completed, Caesar orders his men to build ships of the kind that his experience in Britain in previous years had taught him to make. The keels and the first ribs were made of light timber, the rest of the hull was wattled and covered with hides. These when finished he conveys by night on coupled wagons to a distance of twenty-two miles from the camp and transports his men in them across the river and occupies unobserved the hill adjoining the bank. This he fortifies hastily before the foe should find it out. Hither he afterwards transfers a legion and sets about making a bridge from either side, finishing it in two clays. Thus he recovers in safety the stores and the men who had gone out on the foraging expedition, and begins to settle the difficulties of his food supply.
