During the siege of Acre, the several detachments of the French army stationed in Galilee were attacked by a powerful Mussulman force, which had assembled in the adjoining mountains. Junot, who was induced to risk an engagement near Nazareth, would have been cut in pieces by the Mamlouk cavalry, had not Bonaparte hastened to his assistance We have already alluded to the masterly conduct of Kleber, who, at the head of a few hundred men, kept the field a whole day against an overwhelming mass of horsemen that attacked his party near Mount Tabor. On this occasion, too, the speedy aid of Napoleon secured a victory, and scattered the enemy's troops over the face of the desert. But he found, upon his return to the trenches, that the same men whose columns dissipated like smoke before his battalions on the plain were extremely formidable behind an armed wall, and that all the skill of his engineers and the bravery of his veterans were of no avail when opposed by the savage courage of Turks directed by European officers and supported by English seamen. The sufferings which the French endured in their retreat across the desert were very great, and afforded constant exercise for the self-possession and equanimity of their leader. "A fearful journey," says one of their number, "was yet before us. Some of the wounded were carried in litters, and the rest on camels and mules. A devouring thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat, a fatiguing march among scorching sand-hills, demoralized the men; a most cruel selfishness, the most unfeeling indifference, took place of every generous or humane sentiment. I have seen thrown from the litters officers with amputated limbs, whose conveyance had been ordered, and who had themselves given money as a recompense for the fatigue. I have beheld abandoned among the wheatfields soldiers who had lost their legs or arms, wounded men, and patients supposed to be affected with the plague. Our march was lighted up by torches kindled for the purpose of setting on fire towns, hamlets, and the rich crops with which the earth was covered. The whole country was in flames. It seemed as if we found a solace in this extent of mischief for our own reverses and sufferings. We were surrounded only by the dying, by plunderers, by incendiaries. Wretched beings at the point of death, thrown by the wayside, continued to call with feeble voice, 'I have not the plague, I am but wounded;' and, to convince those that passed, they might be seen tearing open their real wounds, or inflicting new ones. Nobody believed them. It was the interest of all not to believe. Comrades would say, 'He is done for now; his march is over;' then pass on, look to themselves, and feel satisfied. The sun, in all his splendour under that beautiful sky, was obscured by the smoke of continual conflagration. We had the sea on our right; on our left and behind us lay the desert which we had made; before were the sufferings and privations that awaited us."[183]