On receiving the news, Napoleon hurried down from Cairo and arrived (July 25th) with only 10,000 men, mostly cavalry. Murat and Kléber accompanied him. He began by clearing the Turkish gun boats out of Lake Aboukir; then his force attacked Forts Ramleh and Tewfikieh, while his cavalry under Murat, advancing over the level ground between them, drove the flying defenders of each into the Mediterranean and the Bay respectively. 5,400 Turks were drowned. The tip of the peninsula remained and resisted vigorously, but Napoleon managed to mount some of his guns on the hard spit of sand that still extends along the shore of the Bay, and thus to cannonade the Turkish Camp, which was finally taken by storm. RUINS OF CANOPUS. The ruins (_see_ above) lie round Fort Tewfikieh which is seen to the left as the train runs into the station. They were once of interest, but have been almost entirely destroyed by the military authorities, who use the limestone blocks for road making, and allow treasure hunting to go on. The remains are not easy to find, as the area is pitted with excavations. Consult map. (_a_) About 50 yds. from the gateway of the fort, in a hollow to the left of the road, are two huge _Fragments_ of a granite temple. Here were found the busts of Rameses II in the Museum (Room 7) and the colossi of the same King and his daughter (Museum, Court). Date of statues:—B.C. 1300. (_b_) Further to the left, round the Fort, is the site of the _Temple of Serapis_, the most famous building on the peninsula, and celebrated throughout the antique world. It was dedicated by Ptolemy III Euergetes (p. 15) and his wife Berenice. A few years later (B.C. 238) their baby daughter died, and the priests met here in conclave to make her a goddess, and incidentally to endorse some reforms in the Calendar that the King, who had a scientific mind, was pressing. The pronouncement has been preserved in the “Decree of Canopus,” now one of the chief documents for Ptolemaic history. As for miracles, the temple even outstripped the original Temple of Serapis at Alexandria: invalids who slept here even by proxy discovered next day that they were well. It was also the abode of magic and licentiousness according to its enemies, and of philosophy according to its friends. Christianity attacked it. Just before its destruction (A.D. 289) Antoninus, an able pagan reactionary, settled here, and tried to revive the cult. “Often he told his disciples that after his time there would be no temple, and that the great and venerable sanctuary would remain only as an unmeaning mass of ruins, forgotten by all.” (Eunapius, life of Edesius). Antoninus was right.