merely
a general. Even when he is scattering to the winds the proud chivalry
of the East, and is prescribing to Brueys his safest course of action,
he finds time vastly to expand the horizon of human knowledge.

Nor did he neglect Egyptian politics. He used a native council for
consultation and for the promulgation of his own ideas. Immediately
after his entry into Cairo he appointed nine sheikhs to form a divan,
or council, consulting daily on public order and the food-supplies of
the city. He next assembled a general divan for Egypt, and a smaller
council for each province, and asked their advice concerning the
administration of justice and the collection of taxes.[108] In its use
of oriental terminology, this scheme was undeniably clever; but
neither French, Arabs, nor Turks were deceived as to the real
government, which resided entirely in Bonaparte; and his skill in
reapportioning the imposts had some effect on the prosperity of the
land, enabling it to bear the drain of his constant requisitions. The
welfare of the new colony was also promoted by the foundation of a
mint and of an Egyptian Commercial Company.

His inventive genius was by no means exhausted by these varied toils.
On his journey to Suez he met a camel caravan in the desert, and
noticing the speed of the animals, he determined to form a camel
corps; and in the first month of 1799 the experiment was made with
such success that admission into the ranks of the camelry came to be
viewed as a favour. Each animal carried two men with their arms and
baggage: the uniform was sky-blue with a white turban; and the speed
and precision of their movements enabled them to deal terrible blows,
even at distant tribes of Bedouins, who bent before a genius that
could outwit them even in their own deserts.

The pleasures of his officers and men were also met by the opening of
the Tivoli Gardens; and there, in sight of the Pyramids, the life of
the Palais Royal took root: the glasses clinked, the dice rattled, and
heads reeled to the lascivious movements of the eastern dance; and
Bonaparte himself indulged a passing passion for the wife of one of
his officers, with an openness that brought on him a rebuke from his
stepson, Eugene Beauharnais. But already he had been rendered
desperate by reports of the unfaithfulness of Josephine at Paris; the
news wrung from him this pathetic letter to his brother Joseph--the
death-cry of his long drooping idealism:

"I ha