_July 17th._--I was ordered to hold myself in readiness to march across the desert to Kenè on the Nile, a distance of about 130 miles, and to take under my command four companies of His Majesty’s SIXTY-FIRST Regiment, and a detachment of His Majesty’s Tenth Regiment, infantry, together with a small party of the Eighth Light Dragoons,--these amounted to 582 soldiers;--twenty boxes of treasure were likewise put under my escort. The line of march consisted of upwards of 850 men, including Indian followers, Arab camel-drivers, &c., &c. Before I proceed upon my journal of the very fatiguing march I underwent, I shall mention a few observations upon Cosseir, in Upper Egypt. This place is well known as a seaport, and it is, perhaps, one of the most miserable spots in the universe; a few wretched mud-houses placed along the beach, with some narrow lanes branching off at right angles, in all about two hundred _habitations_, compose this abominable little town. Just above it, stands a fort which the French had put into a tolerably defensible state; at all events, it was an _impregnable fortification_ against the combined native force of Upper Egypt. About three-quarters of a mile to the westward of it, was the ground where the Indian army was encamped; this situation is in nature the most sterile and arid, not a blade of any kind of verdure to be seen,--vegetation of every description is totally wanting,--and the wearied eye meets no object but the bare, rugged, and burnt-up hills which bound the view towards the desert. This frightful country appears quite unfit for the existence of human beings; nature has furnished it with no sources of fresh water, and that indispensable necessary of life is only to be obtained by digging wells in the sand, into which oozes a kind of bitter salt water, the most _offensive thing_ to the taste imaginable; and its effects are no less noxious,--as people who drink it are always (at first) attacked with a violent vomiting and purging, which is accompanied by the most intolerable and burning thirst. Our soldiers were nearly to a man, in a more or less degree, afflicted with this disease, and though it only proved fatal to a few, still it handled very roughly all those who were under the necessity of using this detestable water. The heat when I was at Cosseir was almost intolerable. Provisions were plentiful and cheap,--the fish excellent; but although the inhabitants possess as fine wheat as any in Europe, their bread was detestable, being a kind of dough cake half-baked, or rather burnt, in the dusty ashes.