The villages consist merely of huts, absolutely without resources." In these immense plains, scorched by the vertical rays of a burning sun, water, everywhere else so common, becomes an object of contest.

The wells and springs, those secret treasures of the desert, are carefully concealed from the travellers; and frequently, after our most oppressive marches, nothing could be found to allay the urgent cravings of thirst but a little brackish water of the most disgusting description.
-- [Some idea of the misery endured by the French troops on this occasion may be gathered from the following description is Napoleon's Memoirs, dictated at St.Helena: "As the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness complained, and angrily asked Moses for the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt, the French soldiers constantly regretted the luxuries of Italy.

In vain were they assured that the country was the most fertile in the world, that it was even superior to Lombard; how were they to be persuaded of this when they could get neither bread nor wine?
We encamped on immense quantities of wheat, but there was neither mill nor oven in the country.

The biscuit brought from Alexandria had long been exhausted; the soldiers were even reduced to bruise the wheat between two stones and to make cake which they baked under the ashes.

Many parched the wheat in a pan, after which they boiled it.
This was the best way to use the grain; but, after all, it was not bread.