EGYPT. 337 
tainted blast; while from beneath the hulks of chap. 
our transports, ships that had been sunk% with 
all the encumbering bodies of men and car- 
cases of animals, sent through the waves a 
fearful exhalation. 
At the time of our arrival, the French had state of 
afl'airs 
been defeated in three successive actions; — that upon the- 
of the eighth of March, the day of landing our arrival, 
troops; the thirteenth, when the English drove 
them from the heights to which they had 
retreated; and the memorable battle of the 
twenty-first, when Ahercrombie fell. There had 
been a skirmish on the twelfth; in which Colonel 
Archclale, of the twelfth dragoons, lost an arm, 
and Captain Butler of the same regiment was 
taken prisoner. In the action of the twenty- 
first, the French lost five thousand men ; eleven 
hundred of whom the English buried before 
their own lines, and in diflferent parts of their 
camp. We saw the trenches in which they 
were deposited. 
It is a subject of wonder, that our troops 
should have succeeded in this instance so well 
as they did. They landed under every possible 
(3) Part of the L^ Orient, with one of her cables, was raised by the 
crew of the Ceres, Captain Russel, in weighing anchor. 
