I.

Prisoners.

his voyage, without waiting for the other ships. CHAP. The scene which ensued on board the Braakel, upon the arrival of the French prisoners, baffles French every effort of description. Strolling players, collected in a barn, never exhibited more ludicrous dresses, or a better burlesque of the military character. Voltaire, dressed in his pasteboard helmet, with his laced coat and long dirty ruffles, to represent, in one of his own plays, the person of Alexander the Great, was a hero, compared with some of the soldiers of the French army. There were many who made their appearance with the most ghastly visages, beneath helmets of all colours, covered with horses' tails pending over their wrinkled cheeks and shrugged-up shoulders. Every one imagined he should testify a proper degree of spirit, and perhaps ingratiate himself with a British crew, by the ejaculation of some English oath, as soon as he set his foot upon the quarter-deck. When they were all drawn up, in three lines, to be reviewed, and their respective births were assigned to them, some of the new comers were found to be abandoned women, wretchedly dressed in the tattered habits of French soldiers. Other females, more pitiable, came also in men's clothes; but these were Georgian and Circassian girls, once the secluded pride of Turkish Charems,

CHAP. but afterwards the more lamentable slaves of

I.

the lowest rabble of the French army. They were desirous of going anywhere, rather than to remain in EGYPT, where they were sure of being immolated by the first Moslem they might

encounter.

the

All

As soon as matters were somewhat adjusted, and the wounded men taken care of (among whom there were a few in so terrible a condition that they died upon the following day), a deputation, from all the prisoners, waited upon Captain, to offer him a band of music every day during dinner; and requesting his permission. to exhibit a club-d'armes, for fencing, every morning; and a comédie every evening. Never was there any thing to equal the gaiety and good-humour of these poor Frenchmen. animosity was laid aside; singing, dancing, fencing, and acting, became the order of the day; even the wounded, when able to come upon deck, shewed signs of the joy which animated their comrades in the thoughts of returning to France. They would do any thing to gratify the English officers and men. Sometimes, when their band played "God save the King," the members of the theatrical party, in the forecastle, sang out, in broken English," Send him victorious!”

I.

The moment came, however, which was to CHAP. create a pause in all this mirth. The Braakel got under weigh; and a stiff gale causing more motion than suited either the club-d'armes or the comédie, every Frenchman was indisposed. Nothing was then heard but groans and curses. All the instruments were out of tune; and the deck was soon abandoned to the active sailors belonging to the ship's crew. It had been Captain Clarke's intention, in tacking out of Aboukir Roads, to put us on board the Sultan Selim, commanded by the Capudan Pasha, with whom we were acquainted; but this proved to be impracticable. To our very great consternation, we found ourselves, upon the morning of the seventh of August, so far advanced in the voyage to France, that we were already out of sight of the fleet. The Captain told us there was only this alternative; either to go with him to Author Marseilles, or to accept of a small boat, which he narrowly would willingly give us, and, in this, run before being coveyed to the wind to the Mouth of the Nile. The turbu- France. lent appearance of the sea did not at all tempt us to try so hazardous an experiment as the last; for if we had so done, and had escaped the consequences of our own ignorance among mountainous waves, we should inevitably have perished in the surf upon the coast. We therefore could only lament the loss of our intended

escapes

CHAP. journey in Egypt, and retire into the cabin with I. General La Grange, to whom we made known

our very embarrassing situation. While we were thus ruminating upon the unexpected change in all our plans, a cry upon deck an nounced that a sail was in sight, standing towards Aboukir. This proved to be the Diadem, of 64-guns, Captain Larmour, from Cyprus, with wood and water, which presently drew near to us, and was hailed from the Braakel. We requested a passage to the fleet: this was granted, and with some difficulty we got on board. Here we found Colonel Capper, the bearer of overland despatches from India to the British army in Egypt. He gave us an account of his very arduous expedition; and communicated some interesting particulars, concerning the existence of antient Worship of Pagan superstitions in Mount Libanus, particularly those of Venus or Astaroth. These were Libanus. alluded to in the preceding Volume'; and as a renewal of the subject here might be deemed irrelevant, the author has reserved his observations upon Colonel Capper's discovery for the Appendix: it relates to a very interesting relique of the antient mythology of SYRIA.

Astaroth

upon Mount

(1) See Vol. IV. p. 204. Note 1.

(2) See the Appendix to this Volume, No. I.

I.

Upon our return to the fleet, Captain Larmour CHAP. accompanied Colonel Capper to the Admiral's ship; and we revisited the Ceres, where we found our valuable friend Captain Russel, to the great grief of his officers and crew, and all who had the happiness of knowing him, in such a state of indisposition as put an end to every hope of his recovery. We had much difficulty in obtaining a passage to Rosetta on board one of the djerms, or boats belonging to the Nile; but, at length, permission was granted us to sail in one of these vessels, from the Eurus, Captain Guion, who treated us with that politeness we had so often experienced from the officers of the British Navy. We left the Bay of Aboukir, August the eighth, about ten o'clock A. M. As we drew near to the Rosetta mouth of Dangerous the Nile, we observed that the signal-boat was the Bar at not out'. So many lives had been lost upon the bar by not attending to this circumstance*,

(3) During the Egyptian Expedition, a boat with a signal-flag was always anchored on the outside of the mouth of the Nile, when the surf upon the bar was passable.

(4) Scarcely a day elapsed, during our first visit to Rosetta, in which some lives were not sacrificed, owing to the inattention paid to the signal. It was even asserted, that the loss of men at the mouth of the Nile, including those both of the army and navy, who were here sacrificed, was greater than the total of our loss in all the engagements that took place with the French troops in Egypt.

VOL. V.

D

Passage of

the Mouth

of the Nile.