n, and thirsty land. After having
traversed a dreary desert of an hundred and fifty miles, the whole aspect
of the country began rapidly to change. The soldiers were delighted to see
the wreaths of vapor gathering in the hitherto glowing and cloudless
skies. Green and flowery valleys, groves of olive-trees, and wood-covered
hills, rose, like a vision of enchantment, before the eye, so long weary
of gazing upon shifting sands and barren rocks. Napoleon often alluded to
his passage across the desert, remarking that the scene was ever
peculiarly gratifying to his mind. "I never passed the desert," said he,
"without experiencing very powerful emotions. It was the image of
immensity to my thoughts. It displayed no limits. It had neither beginning
nor end. It was an ocean for the foot of man." As they approached the
mountains of Syria, clouds began to darken the sky, and when a few drops
of rain descended, a phenomenon which they had not witnessed for many
months, the joy of the soldiers was exuberant. A murmur of delight ran
through the army, and a curious spectacle was presented, as, with shouts
of joy and peals of laughter, the soldiers, in a body, threw back their
heads and opened their mouths, to catch the grateful drops upon their dry
and thirsty lips.

But when dark night came on, and, with saturated clothing, they threw
themselves down, in the drenching rain, for their night's bivouac, they
remembered with pleasure the star-spangled firmament and the dry sands of
cloudless, rainless Egypt. The march of a few days brought them to Gaza.
Here they encountered another division of the Turkish army. Though headed
by the ferocious Achmet himself, the Turks were, in an hour, dispersed
before the resistless onset of the French, and all the military stores,
which had been collected in the place, fell into the hands of the
conqueror. But perils were now rapidly accumulating around the adventurous
band. England, with her invincible fleet, was landing men, and munitions
of war and artillery, and European engineers, to arrest the progress of
the audacious and indefatigable victor. The combined squadrons of Turkey
and Russia, also, were hovering along the coast, to prevent any possible
supplies from being forwarded to Napoleon from Alexandria. Thirty thousand
Turks, infantry and horsemen, were marshaled at Damascus. Twenty thousand
were at Rhodes. Through all the ravines of Syria, the turbaned Musselmans,
with gleaming sabres, were c