I.

Accident

which be

fel the

66

CHAP. room, to dine there with his officers, according to his weekly custom. As we were beginning our dinner, the voice of a sailor employed in Romulus. heaving the lead was suddenly heard calling half four!" The Captain, starting up, reached the deck in an instant; and almost as quickly putting the ship in stays, she went about. Every seaman on board thought she would be stranded; as she came about, all the surface of the water exhibiting a thick black mud: and this extended so widely, that the appearance resembled an island. At the same time, no land was really visible, not even from the mast-head, nor was there any notice of such a shallow in any chart on board. The fact is, as we leaned afterwards, that a stratum of mud, extending for many leagues off the mouths of the Nile, exists in a moveable deposit near the coast of Egypt, and, when recently shifted by currents, it sometimes reaches quite to the surface, so as to alarm mariners with sudden shallows, where the charts of the Mediterranean promise a considerable depth of water. These shallows, however, are not in the slightest degree dangerous; vessels no sooner touch them, than they are dispersed; and a frigate may ride secure, where the soundings would induce an inexperienced pilot to believe her nearly aground. In the

I.

evening of this day we made land, and saw the CHAP. eastern fort at the entrance of the Damiata branch of the Nile, bearing N. w. distant seven or eight miles.

July the twenty-seventh, at ten A. M. we were employed in answering signals from the Heroine; and it was very interesting to us landsmen, to observe the facility with which the commanders of frigates, separated from each other by such an immense distance that their vessels were scarcely visible to the naked eye, held a conversation with each other. We had calm weather with light breezes during this and the following day: no land was visible. July the twenty-ninth, observed a strange cutter to leeward, and land bearing s. w. and by s. supposed to be cape Brule, distant six or seven miles. July the thirtieth, about three P. M. we made land from the mast head, which proved to be Cape Berelos, bearing s. s. w. distant about ten or twelve miles, the town of Rosetta being at the same time w. and by s. half s. distant ten or eleven miles.

July the thirty-first, a calm and a strong current compelled us to anchor east of Rosetta, in five fathoms and a half water. On the

CHAP. following morning, being the first of August, at I. seven A. M. weighed, and made sail. At four Arrival at P. M. saw the fleet off Aboukir, and plainly

Aboukir.

kel receives

convoy a Squadron

to Mar

seilles.

observed the Admiral's ship. The same evening, at eight o'clock, we came to anchor nearly in the station held by the Romulus previous to her sailing for the coast of SYRIA. Here we received the joyful intelligence of the surrender of Cairo, reports of which had reached us in SYRIA. Presently after, Captain Clarke came alongside, in the Braakel's barge; when, taking leave of our kind friends, we regained once more a comfortable berth within his cabin.

We had not been here many days, before The Brua- the Braakel received orders from the Admiral, orders to Lord Keith, to convoy the French prisoners captured at Rachmanie and the different forts upon the Nile, including the garrison of Cairo, to Marseilles; and, at the same time, to take in, with as many of those prisoners as possible, their artillery, arms, baggage, &c. and to sail with all possible expedition. So rapid were the measures adopted by Captain Clarke for this purpose, that he was ready before any of the other vessels appointed to convey the prisoners had obtained their cargo; and, making the signal for sailing to all the convoy, he was ordered to proceed on

his

voyage, without waiting for the other ships. CHAP. The scene which ensued on board the Braakel,

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French

upon the arrival of the French prisoners, baffles Prisoners. 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 berths 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,

I.

CHAP. but afterwards the more lamentable slaves of 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.

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 the 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 the 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!"