EGYPT. 347 
not a soldier quitted his seat or moved, nor did chap. 
a single sailor shrink from the hard labour of ^ 
his oar. Not a musket was suffered to be 
charged, until the troops could form upon the 
strand. They were commanded to sit still in 
the boats : and this command, with incon- 
ceivable firmness, did these men obey ; with 
the exception only of returning for each volley 
of shot from their enemies three general cheers, 
an effect of ardour in which their officers found 
it impossible to restrain them. The feelings of 
those who remained in the ships were not proof 
against such a sight. Several of our brave 
seamen wept like children ; and many of those 
upon the quarter-decks, who attempted to use 
telescopes, suffered the glasses to fall from their 
hands, and gave vent to their tears. 
But the moment of triumph was at hand. 
For three long miles, pulling in this manner 
says Sir /?. JVilson. Hist.ofthe Exp. p. 5.) "commenced the most violent 
thunder and hail storm ever remembered, and wliich continued two 
days and nights interniittiugly. The hail, or rather the ice stones, 
WERE AS BIG AS LARGE WALNUTS." — Diodurus Siculiis (lib. XX.) men- 
tions a storm of hail which happened at Rlwdes in the spring of the 
year 316 before Otrist, when the hail-stones were upwards of a pound 
in weight, and the houses were thrown down by the weight of them. 
We have accounts of a similar nature in sacred Scripture : * The 
Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and 
they died : they were morewiiich died with hailstones, than they whom 
the children of Israel slew with the sword." Joshua x. 11. 
