onaparte employed the six days during which he remained in Alexandria in
establishing order in the city and province, with that activity and
superior talent which I could never sufficiently admire, and in directing
the march of the army across the province of Bohahire'h. He sent Desaix
with 4500 infantry and 60 cavalry to Beda, on the road to Damanhour.
This general was the first to experience the privations and sufferings
which the whole army had soon to endure. His great mind, his attachment
to Bonaparte, seemed for a moment about to yield to the obstacles which
presented themselves. On the 15th of July he wrote from Bohahire'h as
follows: "I beseech you do not let us stop longer in this position. My
men are discouraged and murmur. Make us advance or fall back without
delay. The villages consist merely of huts, absolutely without
resources."

In these immense plains, scorched by the vertical rays of a burning sun,
water, everywhere else so common, becomes an object of contest. The
wells and springs, those secret treasures of the desert, are carefully
concealed from the travellers; and frequently, after our most oppressive
marches, nothing could be found to allay the urgent cravings of thirst
but a little brackish water of the most disgusting description.

--[Some idea of the misery endured by the French troops on this
occasion may be gathered from the following description is
Napoleon's Memoirs, dictated at St. Helena:

"As the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness complained, and angrily
asked Moses for the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt, the French
soldiers constantly regretted the luxuries of Italy. In vain were
they assured that the country was the most fertile in the world,
that it was even superior to Lombard; how were they to be persuaded
of this when they could get neither bread nor wine? We encamped on
immense quantities of wheat, but there was neither mill nor oven in
the country. The biscuit brought from Alexandria had long been
exhausted; the soldiers were even reduced to bruise the wheat
between two stones and to make cake which they baked under the
ashes. Many parched the wheat in a pan, after which they boiled it.
This was the best way to use the grain; but, after all, it was not
bread. The apprehensions of the soldiers increased daily, and rose
to such a pitch that a great number of them said there was no great
city of calm; and that the place brin