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ren in the world-between them our road lay, through plains near three miles broad, but without trees, shrubs, or herbs; there are not even the traces of any living creatures, neither serpent nor lizard, antelope nor ostrich, the usual inhabitants of the most dreary deserts; there is no sort of water on the surface, brackish or sweet; even the birds seem to avoid the place as pestilential, not having seen one of any kind so much as flying over. The sun was burning hot, and upon rubbing two sticks together, in half a minute they flamed."*

His description of starting on the march is highly graphic:-"When all was ready, the whole party, at a funeral pace, slowly advanced into the gloomy region of the desert. There was nothing in the prospect to excite the energies of the mind, or to arouse the feelings. Men, and camels, and horses, drooping as they went, seemed alike to be aware, that the courage they had now to exert, was only of the passive description-all that was required of them was to suffer! Anger, hatred, and other revengeful feelings, which, like brandy, too often make men careless and insensible to danger, afforded them no such excitement they had not the savage pleasure of contending with human beings-the burning sand,

* Vide Life of Bruce, Murray's Family Library, No. 17,

p. 90.

and the burning sun, it was out of their power to injure."*

The wilds of Egypt are inhabited, or to speak more correctly, traversed successively by bands of Arabs, known by the distinctive name of Bedouins, who again are subdivided into numerous tribes. They are thieves by profession, and are in themselves the strongest possible living proofs of the existence of honour among that fraternity. The striking point of character amongst them, is that of defending to the death any one once under their protection, either from having purchased their services, or from having been led by accident to their dwellings, and partaken of their hospitality.

They levy tributes on the caravans which pass through their territories; and woe be to those who should refuse to pay. They possess great numbers of cattle, horses, and goats. Their dress consists only of a linen shirt, with large sleeves, which descends to their heels, and over that a black or white woollen jacket. They occasionally throw a shawl across their shoulders, and wear turbans, the under part of which consists of a handsome crimson cap. Always mounted either on horses or dromedaries, of which the fleetness is proverbial, they are constantly armed with fusils and pistols, sabres, and sometimes spears. They are the self-constituted proprietors of the wells,

* Ibid.

near which their camps are pitched, a circumstance which renders it impossible for the caravans that cross the desert to escape their exactions.

Kosseir, however, if not fertile on its surface, contains some hidden treasures. Bruce says, "it has been a wonder among all travellers, and myself among the rest, where the ancients procured the prodigious quantity of fine marble with which all their buildings abound. That wonder now ceases; after having passed in four days, in the neighbourhood of Kosseir, more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper, than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, Memphis, Alexandria, and half-adozen such cities."

We have devoted some space to these accounts, because they serve to illustrate the progress of the gallant subject of our memoir, and enable the reader to form some opinion of what he and his gallant army were doomed to undergo. Only let it be recollected, that in addition to the hardships, the exertions of mind and body, the fatigues and vexations, and the hopes and disappointments incidental to his elevated and responsible situation, General Baird had to endure all the other afflictions so sensitively described by De Noé and Bruce.

Think, too, what must have been General Baird's feelings on the discovery of the failure of the conveyance for water, by which his whole arrangement would be destroyed, and the expe

dition in all probability itself terminated; add to this another serious evil which he experienced, and which he describes in a letter to General Hutchinson, dated from the New Wells, (to which place he had gone forward,) arising from the misinformation which he almost invariably received as to the relative positions of places on the routedistances estimated by the natives at twenty miles, almost always proved to be double that amountin some instances more; so that he found the calculations which he had made, not only as regarded time, but in estimating the number of camels requisite for the performance of the journeys on different days, all erroneous.

With his mind full of these distracting difficulties, but with a firm heart and an unshaken resolution, General Baird, having despatched Colonel Murray's detachment, returned to Kosseir, on the evening of the 22d of June.

CHAPTER XVII.

GENERAL BAIRD TAKES NEW PRECAUTIONS -REPORT OF A LARGE FRENCH FORCE AT CAIRO-GEN. BAIRD'S DETERMINATION THEREUPON STAFF OF THE ARMY ARRIVAL OF THE WASP-LETTERS FROM COLONEL WELLESLEY MEMORANDUM-SIR HOME POPHAM'S INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE FLEET-GENERAL BAIRD QUITS KOSSEIR— ARRIVES AT MOILAH-DISTRESSES OF THE MARCH-COUNT DE NOE -LEGETA-GHENNAH-CONTINUED SILENCE OF GENERAL HUTCHINSON-GENERAL BAIRD'S ANXIETY-LETTER FROM ADMIRAL BLANKETT SURRENDER OF CAIRO-GENERAL BAIRD RESOLVES UPON HALTING, AND PREPARES TO RE-EMBARK THE ARMY-DESPATCHES FROM GENERAL HUTCHINSON MAKES PREPARATIONS FOR MOVING FORWARD TO JOIN THAT OFFICER.

WHILE General Baird continued busily occupied in making the necessary preparations for the march, the perils and difficulties of which seemed awfully to increase in number and magnitude as he approached them more nearly, in repairing the mischief which had already occurred to the mussacks, upon which so much, in fact everything, depended, and in providing against a recurrence of similar misfortunes, his active mind had been employed in endeavouring to turn to advantage some intelligence which he had, as he believed, exclusively obtained from an

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