Nelson was flying hither and thither, on the keenest of hunts, hoping to pounce upon the crowded vessels of the French, and to sink them. Storms, fog, bad guessing, and Napoleonic luck fought against the English, and they missed the quarry completely. Napoleon hastily landed near Alexandria, July 2, 1798, marched upon the city, and easily took it. After a short rest, the army set out by the shortest route for Cairo. The sun was terribly hot, the desert a burning torment, water it was almost impossible to supply, food failed, and the skirmishes of the enemy from behind sandhills, rocks, or scraggy bushes harassed the march, cutting off every straggler. Bitterly the soldiers complained, contrasting this torrid wilderness to the fertile beauty of Italian plains. Even the generals became disheartened, indignant, almost mutinous. Men like Murat and Lannes dashed their plumed and braided hats on the ground, trampled them, and damned the day that had brought them to this barren Hades. The common soldiers bitterly recalled Napoleon’s promise that each of them should make enough out of the campaign to buy seven acres of land. Was this desert a fair sample of the land they were to get? If so, why the limit of seven acres? The trying march was over at last, the Nile was reached, and then came the relief of battle and easy victory. The Mamelukes were great horsemen, the best in the world, perhaps; but they had no infantry and no artillery worth the name. In the hands of Napoleon they were children. Battle with Mamelukes was target practice, during which French marksmen, in hollow square, shot out of their saddles the simple-minded Mamelukes, who fancied that they could do everything with horses. In all of the battles which took place, the tactics of the French were the same: “Form square: savants and asses to the centre.” Then, while the baggage, the learned men, and the long-eared donkeys rested securely within the lines, a steady fire of musketry and cannon emptied the saddles of the heroes of the desert. To see the Mamelukes come thundering on to the attack, was magnificent; to see them drop in the sand without having been able to reach the French, was pitiful.