Some of the Arab watermen were employed to supply the hospital with water. They brought it from the Nile[16] upon their backs, in the skins of goats slung across their shoulders. The skin had been sewed up after being taken off the animal, and was in its natural shape; the neck part being left open for filling and emptying. (This was simply twisted and held together with the hand, when the skin was to be immediately emptied; but it might be tied, when it was to be kept full, or carried to a distance.) All kinds of liquids, even wine and honey are kept in these skins.--This illustrates the parable of the new wine and old bottles, Luke v. 37, 38. The bottles were _skins_: and, as wine is a fermented liquor, the skin bottles, once used, would be so much impregnated with the wine that had been in them, that if new wine were put into them, it would cause it to ferment anew; and this would burst them. The original inmates of the hospital were now greatly reduced; a number having recovered, and a great many having died: but it was not allowed in any part to remain empty. Grand Cairo having surrendered to the British and Turkish forces on the 24th June, the sick of our own army were sent down the Nile; and they filled up all the vacancies. Cases of dysentery, and sore eyes, were so numerous, that a number of buildings were fitted up in Rosetta for their reception. Many died of the dysentery; but those afflicted with sore eyes were most numerous, and much to be pitied.--Their torment was excessive: the pain in their eyes was as if they had been filled with burning sand, they had no respite from acute sufferings; and many lost their sight in spite of all the power of medicine. About the end of August, my own eyes became dreadfully inflamed in one night. The surgeon applied a very large blister in the morning, and by next day the inflammation was greatly subsided, but I did not get wholly free of it until I left Egypt, and was several days at sea on the way to Malta. The Egyptian _ophthalmia_ was one of the most dreadful calamities that ever befel the British army. The French that were in Cairo, amounting to 13000, were embarked and sent to France in the month of August.