At last the minarets of Cairo glimmered through the haze. The city boasted a population of many thousands, and their task-masters were prepared to sell their lives dearly in its defence. Near the Pyramids, those monuments of ancient greatness, the army halted. “Soldiers!” Napoleon cried, “from those summits forty centuries contemplate your actions.” A more pregnant sentence cannot be conceived; it acted on the soldiers like a stimulant. There was difficult work to do, for the city was intrenched and defended by artillery, musketry, and cavalry under the command of Murad Bey, one of the chiefs of the Mamelukes. A flotilla with supplies had met the French previously, so there was no question of lack of ammunition, but the enemy, probably numbering 18,000 men, looked as though they would make a brave fight of it. They did not belie their appearance. The Mamelukes charged the dense squares with amazing recklessness but were driven back. Presently Napoleon gave the word, his troops surged forward, and Frenchman and Arab met in a death-struggle in the trenches. Those of the enemy who could make good their escape did so, others were mown down as they made the attempt. Some expired on the wind-swept sand, others perished in the turgid waters of the Nile. Thus ended the Battle of the Pyramids. At nightfall the Egyptian camp presented a very different spectacle from its appearance in the morning. Soldiers were ransacking the scarcely cold bodies of those who had fallen in the rout, searching the camp for booty, for jewels, for ornaments of silver and of gold. Never was there richer plunder. Napoleon, now master of Cairo, made his headquarters in a palace formerly occupied by the defeated Murad. As at Malta, Napoleon at once began his scheme of reform, only on a necessarily larger scale. A general Congress was established for the government of the country. A scientific institute was founded, its chief object being to collect facts and figures likely to be of use in the development of Egypt. Many of the indispensable accessories of modern civilisation, from windmills to printing presses, were introduced. Romantic fancies were becoming realities, when Napoleon heard of the irreparable loss of his fleet, news which burst upon him with almost stunning force. Think for a moment what the disaster meant. The fleet was his sole means of communication with France. Brueys had signally neglected to carry out his master’s orders that he was either to enter the harbour of Alexandria or to return to Corfu, and he had thereby given Nelson the opportunity which he had long been seeking and which had eluded him again and again. Some excuse is afforded Brueys by reason of his bad health, and it is certain that he found it next to impossible to control his insubordinate crews. On the 1st August 1798 the little one-eyed, one-armed British seaman not only shattered a French fleet considerably superior in strength, but dealt a crushing blow at the