ch you are
promised," exclaimed a waggish soldier to his comrade as they first
gazed from ship-board on the desert east of Alexandria; and all the
sense of discipline failed to keep this and other gibes from the ears
of staff officers even before they reached that city. Far worse was
their position now in the shifting sand of the desert, beset by
hovering Bedouins, stung by scorpions, and afflicted by intolerable
thirst. The Arabs had filled the scanty wells with stones, and only
after long toil could the sappers reach the precious fluid beneath.
Then the troops rushed and fought for the privilege of drinking a few
drops of muddy liquor. Thus they struggled on, the succeeding
divisions faring worst of all. Berthier, chief of the staff, relates
that a glass of water sold for its weight in gold. Even brave officers
abandoned themselves to transports of rage and despair which left them
completely prostrate.[103]

But Bonaparte flinched not. His stern composure offered the best
rebuke to such childish sallies; and when out of a murmuring group
there came the bold remark, "Well, General, are you going to take us
to India thus," he abashed the speaker and his comrades by the quick
retort, "No, I would not undertake that with such soldiers as you."
French honour, touched to the quick, reasserted itself even above the
torments of thirst; and the troops themselves, when they tardily
reached the Nile and slaked their thirst in its waters, recognized the
pre-eminence of his will and his profound confidence in their
endurance. French gaiety had not been wholly eclipsed even by the
miseries of the desert march. To cheer their drooping spirits the
commander had sent some of the staunchest generals along the line of
march. Among them was the gifted Caffarelli, who had lost a leg in the
Rhenish campaign: his reassuring words called forth the inimitable
retort from the ranks: "Ah! he don't care, not he: he has one leg in
France." Scarcely less witty was the soldier's description of the
prowling Bedouins, who cut off stragglers and plunderers, as "The
mounted highway police."

After brushing aside a charge of 800 Mamelukes at Chebreiss, the army
made its way up the banks of the Nile to Embabeh, opposite Cairo.
There the Mamelukes, led by the fighting Bey, Murad, had their
fortified camp; and there that superb cavalry prepared to overwhelm
the invaders in a whirlwind rush of horse (July 21st, 1798). The
occasion and the surroundings we