“It was with the greatest difficulty, and after employing every means of persuasion in my power, that I prevented this rabble army of half-mad fanatics from marching to certain destruction. They at last came back to Mater, and made night hideous by repeated false alarms that the French were upon us; each of these scares being accompanied by a rush for their horses, and a general stampede in the direction of a bridge which crosses a little river outside the town. This bridge is in a hollow, and the foolish people thought they could defend it, although, of course, it would have been quite untenable. Fortunately enough for the Arabs, the French did not arrive till the 18th May, when most of the mountaineers, tired out with waiting, had gone to their homes. General Maurand’s task was consequently a very easy one, for he was only opposed by a handful of horsemen and a rabble of the countryfolk mostly armed with bludgeons, amongst whom, unorganised as they were and totally ignorant of the methods of modern warfare, it was not difficult to create a panic. A few well-directed shells soon put them to flight, and as soon as they heard the projectiles exploding behind them, they imagined they were entirely surrounded, and fled in all directions. Very few lives were lost: one or two only of the most hardy horsemen who rode right up to the enemy’s ranks were shot, and the French did not lose a single man. Having now met their foes face and face, the Arabs were better able to form an accurate idea of the immeasurable superiority of the invading forces, and it was quite sufficient that one tribe should lay down its rusty swords and gaspipe-looking guns, for all the rest to follow the example. “As soon as the tribes had consented to obey the French, detachments were sent round to collect their arms. I do not suppose that there were many weapons given up that would be considered worthy of a place in the _Musée d’Artillerie_, for every man who had a decent gun hid it away, in expectancy of the arrival of the Sultan’s troops, and surrendered some venerable Belgian flint-lock instead. These from their enormous length look as if they were sold by the yard, and are only preserved from bursting by the fact that the powder usually sold in the Regency is about two-thirds charcoal, and consequently not very strong.