ld scarcely be used.
Others, again, out-Heroding Herod, suggested that the frigates and
transports at Alexandria should be taken to pieces and conveyed on
camels' backs to Suez, there to be used for the invasion of
India.[107]

The versatility of Bonaparte's genius was never more marked than at
this time of discouragement. While his enemies figured him and his
exhausted troops as vainly seeking to escape from those arid wastes;
while Nelson was landing the French prisoners in order to increase his
embarrassment about food, Bonaparte and his _savants_ were developing
constructive powers of the highest order, which made the army
independent of Europe. It was a vast undertaking. Deprived of most of
their treasure and many of their mechanical appliances by the loss of
the fleet, the _savants_ and engineers had, as it were, to start from
the beginning. Some strove to meet the difficulties of food-supply by
extending the cultivation of corn and rice, or by the construction of
large ovens and bakeries, or of windmills for grinding corn. Others
planted vineyards for the future, or sought to appease the ceaseless
thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer.
Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and
machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought,
saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured
for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity
of 1793.

With his usual ardour in the cause of learning, Bonaparte several
times a week appeared in the chemical laboratory, or witnessed the
experiments performed by Berthollet and Monge. Desirous of giving
cohesion to the efforts of his _savants_, and of honouring not only
the useful arts but abstruse research, he united these pioneers of
science in a society termed the Institute of Egypt. On August 23rd,
1798, it was installed with much ceremony in the palace of one of the
Beys, Monge being president and Bonaparte vice-president. The general
also enrolled himself in the mathematical section of the institute.
Indeed, he sought by all possible means to aid the labours of the
_savants_, whose dissertations were now heard in the large hall of the
harem that formerly resounded only to the twanging of lutes, weary
jests, and idle laughter. The labours of the _savants_ were not
confined to Cairo and the Delta. As soon as the victories of Desaix
in Upper Egypt opened the middle reaches