SOUTHERN AFRICA. 215 
That no part of his army would ever return is extremely 
probable. When a considerable proportion had perished by 
fatigue, by sickness, and by famine, the rest, in all human 
probability, by change of climate, manner of living, and by 
intermarrying with a new people, would produce a new race, 
and that race would cease to be Frenchmen, just as the suc- 
cessors of Alexander ceased to be Greeks. An army for such 
an expedition must, in the outset, be immense, to afford a 
sufficient number of men to maintain the conquered countries 
through which they must pass. The farther they proceeded 
the more numerous would be the enemies left in their rear ; 
and on their approach to India, there is no reason for sup- 
posing that the native powers would welcome their arrival, 
jealous, as they now must be, of admitting new European 
visitors, after the dearly bought experience they have already 
had of their old friends from the same quarter. These, how- 
ever, are contingencies that amount to no security of a failure 
in the main object of the expedition, namely, the destruction 
of our empire in the east. We shall, perhaps, come nearest 
the mark by considering the most serious, and probably the 
only, obstacle that would impede their progress in the coun- 
tries that lie between Syria and India, to be occasioned 
by the great difficulty of procuring provisions and trans- 
porting the baggage and ammunition that would be re- 
quired for so large an army. But even these are difficulties 
which, by an enterprizing and determined mind, would be 
surmounted. 
Whether the French really intended to march an army by 
land, in the event of their having reduced Acre and got pos- 
