idle. By vast
exertions they had roused the whole Mussulman population to march, in the
name of the Prophet, for the destruction of the "Christian dogs." An
enormous army was marshaled, and was on its way for the relief of the
beleagured city. Damascus had furnished its thousands. The scattered
remnants of the fierce Mamelukes, and the mounted Bedouins of the desert,
had congregated, to rush, with resistless numbers, upon their bold
antagonist.

Napoleon had been engaged for ten days in an almost incessant assault upon
the works of Acre, when the approach of the great Turkish army was
announced. It consisted of about thirty thousand troops, twelve thousand
of whom were the fiercest and best-trained horsemen in the world. Napoleon
had but eight thousand effective men with which to encounter the
well-trained army of Europeans and Turks within the walls of Acre, and the
numerous host rushing to its rescue. He acted with his usual promptitude.
Leaving two thousand men to protect the works and cover the siege, he
boldly advanced with but six thousand men, to encounter the thirty
thousand already exulting in his speedy and sure destruction. Kleber was
sent forward with an advance-guard of three thousand men. Napoleon
followed soon after, with three thousand more. As Kleber, with his little
band, defiled from a narrow valley at the foot of Mount Tabor, he entered
upon an extended plain. It was early in the morning of the sixteenth of
April. The unclouded sun was just rising over the hills of Palestine, and
revealed to his view the whole embattled Turkish host spread out before
him. The eye was dazzled with the magnificent spectacle, as proud banners
and plumes, and gaudy turbans and glittering steel, and all the barbaric
martial pomp of the East was reflected by the rays of the brilliant
morning. Twelve thousand horsemen, decorated with the most gorgeous
trappings of military show, and mounted on the fleetest Arabian chargers,
were prancing and curveting in all directions. A loud and exultant shout
of vengeance and joy, rising like the roar of the ocean, burst from the
Turkish ranks, as soon as they perceived their victims enter the plain.
The French, too proud and self-confident to retreat before any superiority
in numbers, had barely time to form themselves into one of Napoleon's
impregnable squares, when the whole cavalcade of horsemen, with gleaming
sabres and hideous yells, and like the sweep of the wind, came rushing
dow