Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

Mourad Bey had there assembled the greater part of his Mamelukes, nearly ten thousand in number, for a decisive battle. These proud and powerful horsemen were supported by twenty-four thousand foot soldiers, strongly intrenched. Cairo is on the eastern banks of the Nile. Napoleon was marching along the western shore. On the morning of the 21st of July, Napoleon, conscious that he was near the city, set his army in motion before the break of day. Just as the sun was rising in those cloudless skies, the soldiers beheld the lofty minarets of the city upon their left, gilded by its rays, and upon the right, upon the borders of the desert, the gigantic pyramids rising like mountains upon an apparently boundless plain. The whole army instinctively halted and gazed awe-stricken upon those monuments of antiquity. The face of Napoleon beamed with enthusiasm. “Soldiers!” he exclaimed, as he rode along the ranks; “from those summits forty centuries contemplate your actions.” The ardor of the soldiers was aroused to the highest pitch. Animated by the clangor of martial bands, and the gleam of flaunting banners, they advanced with impetuous steps to meet their foes. The whole plain before them, at the base of the pyramids was filled with armed men. The glittering weapons of ten thousand horsemen, in the utmost splendor of barbaric chivalry, brilliant with plumes and arms of burnished steel and gold, presented an array inconceivably imposing. Undismayed the French troops, marshaled in five invincible squares, pressed on. There was apparently no alternative. Napoleon must march upon those intrenchments, behind which twenty-four thousand men were stationed with powerful artillery and musketry to sweep his ranks, and a formidable body of ten thousand horsemen, on fleet and powerful Arabian steeds, awaiting the onset, and ready to seize upon the slightest indications of confusion to plunge, with the fury which fatalism can inspire, upon his bleeding and mangled squares. It must have been with Napoleon a moment of intense anxiety. But as he sat upon his horse, in the centre of one of the squares, and carefully examined, with his telescope, the disposition of the enemy, no one could discern the slightest trace of uneasiness. His gaze was long and intense. The keenness of his scrutiny detected that the guns of the enemy were not mounted upon carriages, and that they could not therefore be turned from the direction in which they were placed. No other officer, though many of them had equally good glasses, made this important discovery. He immediately, by a lateral movement, guided his army to the right, toward the pyramids, that his squares might be out of the range of the guns, and that he might attack the enemy in flank. The moment Mourad Bey perceived this evolution, he divined its object, and with great military sagacity resolved instantly to charge.

“You shall now see us,” said the proud Bey, “cut up those dogs, like gourds.”

It was, indeed, a fearful spectacle. Ten thousand horsemen, magnificently dressed, with the fleetest steeds in the world, urging their horses with bloody spurs, to the most impetuous and furious onset, rending the heavens with their cries, and causing the very earth to tremble beneath the thunder of iron feet, came down upon the adamantine host. Nothing was ever seen in war more furious than this charge. Ten thousand horsemen is an enormous mass. Those longest inured to danger felt that it was an awful moment. It seemed impossible to resist such a living avalanche. The most profound silence reigned through the ranks, interrupted only by the word of command. The nerves of excitement being roused to the utmost tension, every order was executed with most marvelous rapidity and precision. The soldiers held their breath, and with bristling bayonets stood, shoulder to shoulder, to receive the shock.

The moment the Mamelukes arrived within gunshot, the artillery, at the angles, plowed their ranks, and platoons of musketry, volley after volley, in a perfectly uninterrupted flow, swept into their faces a pitiless tempest of destruction. Horses and riders, struck by the balls, rolled over each other, by hundreds, in the sand, and were trampled and crushed by the iron hoofs of the thousands of frantic steeds, enveloped in dust and smoke, composing the vast and impetuous column. But the squares stood as firm as the pyramids at whose base they fought. Not one was broken; not one wavered. The daring Mamelukes, in the frenzy of their rage and disappointment, threw away their lives with the utmost recklessness. They wheeled their horses round and reined them back upon the ranks, that they might kick their way into those terrible fortresses of living men. Rendered furious by their inability to break the ranks, they hurled their pistols and carbines at the heads of the French. The wounded crawled along the ground, and with their scimitars, cut at the legs of their indomitable foes. They displayed superhuman bravery, the only virtue which the Mamelukes possessed.

But an incessant and merciless fire from Napoleon’s well-trained battalions continually thinned their ranks, and at last the Mamelukes, in the wildest disorder, broke, and fled. The infantry, in the intrenched camp, witnessing the utter discomfiture of the mounted troops, whom they had considered invincible, and seeing such incessant and volcanic sheets of flame bursting from the impenetrable squares, caught the panic, and joined the flight. Napoleon now, in his turn, charged with the utmost impetuosity. A scene of indescribable confusion and horror ensued. The extended plain was crowded with fugitives – footmen and horsemen, bewildered with terror, seeking escape from their terrible foes. Thousands plunged into the river, and endeavored to escape by swimming to the opposite shore. But a shower of bullets, like hail stones, fell upon them, and the waves of the Nile were crimsoned with their blood. Others sought the desert, a wild and rabble rout. The victors, with their accustomed celerity pursued, pitilessly pouring into the dense masses of their flying foes the most terrible discharges of artillery and musketry. The rout was complete – the carnage awful. The sun had hardly reached the meridian, before the whole embattled host had disappeared, and the plain as far as the eye could extend, was strewn with the dying and the dead. The camp, with all its Oriental wealth, fell into the hands of the victors; and the soldiers enriched themselves with its profusion of splendid shawls, magnificent weapons, Arabian horses, and purses filled with gold. The Mamelukes were accustomed to lavish great wealth in the decorations of their persons, and to carry with them large sums of money. The gold and the trappings found upon the body of each Mameluke were worth from twelve hundred to two thousand dollars. Besides those who were slain upon the field, more than a thousand of these formidable horsemen were drowned in the Nile. For many days the soldiers employed themselves in fishing up the rich booty, and the French camp was filled with all abundance. This most sanguinary battle cost the French scarcely one hundred men in killed and wounded. More than ten thousand of the enemy perished. Napoleon gazed with admiration upon the bravery which these proud horsemen displayed. “Could I have united the Mameluke horse to the French infantry,” said he, “I should have reckoned myself master of the world.”

After the battle, Napoleon, now the undisputed conqueror of Egypt, quartered himself for the night in the country palace of Mourad Bey. The apartments of this voluptuous abode were embellished with all the appurtenances of Oriental luxury. The officers were struck with surprise in viewing the multitude of cushions and divans covered with the finest damasks and silks, and ornamented with golden fringe. Egypt was beggared to minister to the sensual indulgence of these haughty despots. Much of the night was passed in exploring this singular mansion. The garden was extensive and magnificent in the extreme. Innumerable vines were laden with the richest grapes. The vintage was soon gathered by the thousands of soldiers who filled the alleys and loitered in the arbors. Pots of preserves, of confectionery, and of sweetmeats of every kind, were quickly devoured by an army of mouths. The thousands of little elegancies which Europe, Asia, and Africa had contributed to minister to the voluptuous splendors of the regal mansion, were speedily transferred to the knapsacks of the soldiers.