been engaged has not been a brilliant one, but I hope it will be recollected that it has been most useful, and has required constant vigilance and attention; it has lasted now for many weeks; the labour has been excessive, and the fatigue greater than I can express[1].”
The attention of the allies was next directed to Alexandria, which place now contained within its walls, and its harbour, all that remained of the mighty force which had arrived from Toulon, under Buonaparte, in 1798, and no time was lost in completing the circumvallation of that town. The tower of Marabout, standing on a small island at the western side of the port, commanding one of the channels, surrendered on the 21st July, and Captain, now Sir Alexander, Cochrane immediately entered the harbour with 4 British and 3 Turkish corvettes, whilst the flotilla, under Captain Stevenson, rendered important services on Lake Mareotis. Thus pressed and hemmed in on every side, General Menou began to feel that his power was at an end; as the probability of relief from France was too distant to afford a ray of hope. He con-
- ↑ On the 6th July, 1801, ten days after the surrender of Grand Cairo, the French disinterred the body of General Kleber for the purpose of conveying it with them to France. The following day, Captain Hillyar rode to Heliopolis a place where formerly stood a famous temple of the Sun. On the 12th he went by invitation to dine with the Colonel of the Mamelukes attached to the republican army. The repast was served up in the tower of Mekias, which proved to be the handsomest building he had seen in Egypt. The pillar on which the rise of the Nile is measured is the centre of the edifice and stands in a large octagon well which communicates by a subterranean passage with the river. The pillar is graduated in Arabic coundées, a measure nearly equal to the ancient cubit. Over the well stands a handsome dome, ornamented profusely with painted glass, &c. The Colonel’s wife, a fair Syrian, was dressed as a Frenchwoman, though her usual habit was that of an officer in her husband’s corps. She had been with him in several battles with the Bedouin Arabs, and in consequence obtained the appellation of his fighting wife.
At daylight on the 15th July, the whole of the British, Turkish, and French vessels weighed and sailed down the Nile. The number of djerms, &c. employed in conveying the effects of the three armies amounted to 269. We cannot take our leave of Grand Cairo without relating an instance of the depravity of the captives: among other articles of what they called their private property, they brought some Grecian women whom the fortune of war had transferred to them; and these unfortunate victims of their rapacity and their lust, they sold, without reserve or remorse, as in a public market, to the Turks.
