The military, in general, have a great deal to suffer, for, besides being hated by the people, as the executioners of the cruel punishments to which the poor natives are frequently condemned by the government, they do not lead the most agreeable life themselves, inasmuch as they are only paid once a-year. They are obliged to serve for the term of their natural lives, and are nothing but slaves in the strictest sense of the word. If a man fall sick, he is, indeed, admitted into the hospital, but this is a perfect place of horror to the soldier, for, as soon as he enters the infirmary, he may make his will and prepare for his latter end, so few are fortunate enough to escape with their lives. It would really be more humane to allow the soldiers to cure themselves after their own fashion; and I am convinced that the majority of those literally murdered by the doctors and apothecaries from sheer ignorance, would be yet living to put them to the blush. Before I was aware of the frightful mortality in the hospitals, I expressed my sorrow for the poor Mogghrebeen who are refused admission, and severely censured the government for its cruelty; but I subsequently convinced myself that they have every reason to think themselves fortunate in not being received into those houses of slaughter. I procured, indeed, the bills of mortality of the regiment, and that of the corps of Mogghrebeen, compared the number of deaths amongst the three thousand troops of the line and the number of patients in the hospital, with those of the eight hundred men, Bedouins, who receive no medical relief, but cure themselves by domestic remedies, and found a result of twenty-seven per cent. of deaths among those killed in the hospital above the rate of mortality of the Mogghrebeen, who are left entirely to themselves. The Egyptian doctors and apothecaries, scarcely escaped from the elementary schools and placed on their own footing, treat the sick soldiers like cattle, never dream of diagnosis, prescribe whatever enters their heads, and care very little whether they save a man’s life or murder him.