The cannonade which we heard, and which augmented in proportion as the north wind diminished, announced a serious engagement; and that same day we saw the banks of the Nile strewed with heaps of bodies, which the waves were every moment washing into the sea.

This horrible spectacle, the silence of the surrounding villages, which had hitherto been armed against us, and the cessation of the firing from the banks of the river, led us to infer, with tolerable certainty, that a battle fatal to the Mamelukes had been fought.

The misery we suffered on our passage from Rahmahanie'h to Gizeh is indescribable.

We lived for eleven days on melons and water, besides being momentarily exposed to the musketry of the Arabs and the fellahs.

We luckily escaped with but a few killed and wounded.