Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

by Abdullah Browne

The Dewan having been broken up by the departure of Murad Bey and others of the Mamaluk chiefs, no regular council could be held; but Bekir Pacha, with some of the Ulema and leading men who remained, held frequent consultations and were in constant communication with Ibrahim Bey, who remained at Boulac day and night to supervise the work there and along the river, by the side of which batteries were being erected for a distance of nearly three miles north of Boulac.

Ibrahim Bey appears to the last to have preserved his confidence in the certainty of the Mamaluks proving victorious, but Bekir Pacha, when the news of the near approach of the French was received, decided in conjunction with some of the Ulema to make an attempt to treat with the enemy. With this object in view they sent for a Monsieur Bandeuf, who was regarded as the leader of the French colony, and begged him to tell them candidly what he thought was the object of the invasion. He, of course, was no better informed upon this point than they were themselves, but he could at least form an idea, and his reply was that he believed it most likely the French desired nothing more than a free passage through the country to enable them to proceed to India to join their countrymen there in their struggle with the English. Accepting this as, at least, a possibly true explanation of the invasion, they proposed to Monsieur Bandeuf that he should go as an envoy from them to Bonaparte, and assure him of their willingness to facilitate him in every way if such were his object. Not without some hesitation occasioned by his fear that it would not be possible for him to reach the French camp in safety, Monsieur Bandeuf consented to do this, and was preparing to set out, with an escort of the Mamaluks of Ibrahim Bey for his protection, when the reverberations of the cannon at Embabeh were heard, and they realised that it was too late for such an embassy as they had proposed.

As soon as Ibrahim Bey heard the commencement of the battle he began to take such steps as he could to forward assistance to Murad Bey, but long before any effective move in that direction could be made the battle was over, and Ibrahim Bey, hearing of the flight of Murad, hastened back to Cairo with Bekir Pacha, to take their families and valuables and flee.

Words fail to describe the panic that overwhelmed the people. Utterly helpless, and unaccustomed to think or act for themselves, unarmed and without any possible means of defence, they saw themselves, deserted by their leaders, at the mercy of a foe from whom, as they thought, they could expect no quarter and no pity, while the military force, in the protection of which they had felt such unbounded confidence, was in full flight leaving them to their fate. To any unwarlike and helpless people to be thus suddenly abandoned as a prey to an unknown foe must have seemed an appalling disaster, but in this case no circumstance seems to have been wanting that could by any possibility add to the natural terror of the people at the calamity that had so suddenly befallen them. In less than an hour they were plunged from an exulting ecstasy of triumphant anticipation to the crushing despondency of the direst despair. The consternation that had been occasioned by the first news of the defeat of the Mamaluks at Shebriss had been largely, if not wholly, dissipated by the representations of the Mamaluks, and so loud and blatant were the vauntings of the people that Gabarty, whose Arab blood had but little sympathy for any open expression of the emotions, speaks in the most contemptuous terms of their conduct as wholly unworthy of a people deserving of any esteem. Nor had the Mamaluks, knowing well how little love the people bore them, neglected to contribute all they could to their fear of the French by attributing to these the lust of rapine and bloodthirsty cruelty. And with the news of the defeat and flight of Murad Bey came the tale of the slaughter of the Mamaluks by the riverside to confirm and augment the worst fears of the people. Later on reports were spread that the French were still busy slaying and destroying all before them, and, Ibrahim Bey having ordered the burning of all the boats to prevent the French using them to cross the river, the people, ignorant of this, took the dense columns of smoke arising from the riverside as confirmation of the ruthless ravage the French were said to be wrecking. In the dire madness of the despair that seized them no room was left for any other thoughts than those of self-preservation, and, as the evening closed in and night fell, the whole population, laden with all they could carry of their goods or wealth, streamed out of the city gates. In the maddened rush for safety, all the claims of blood and friendship were forgotten, and men and women alike, frantic from their fears, fought their way through the fleeing crowds heedless of parents, wives, brothers, sisters.

More than one writer has taken this wild exodus as a text to accuse the people of cowardice. Nothing could be more unjust. They were flying from what to them was a very real and immediate danger, and for the most part on foot from mounted foes. They could see no other choice but fly or die, and the darkness of the night, the suddenness of the danger, everything helped to urge them onward. Not more sure was Christian that he was fleeing from the City of Destruction than were they. It was a panic such as seizes a people with all the more uncontrollable force in that it comes as a sudden revulsion from peaceful ease; one such as those that in our own days in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco have turned laughing, joyous crowds of pleasure-seekers into mobs of frenzied fugitives. When in the days of the dynamite scare in London the crash of the Scotland Yard explosion was heard in the Strand, men dashed here and there for safety from the danger that had passed. Not long after I saw a roomful of men hurl themselves headlong down a narrow flight of stairs, fleeing madly from the report of a detonating cigar! I have seen panic seize a thousand emigrants on board a German ship in mid-ocean; another, the pilgrims for Mecca on an Austrian ship in Bombay Harbour; another, the coolies working on the Hurnai Railway in Beloochistan. In these cases the panic-creating danger was an imaginary one, and yet in real danger these same victims of panic remained calm and collected. It was so, as we shall have occasion to see, with the unhappy Cairenes.

I have spoken already of the fears that the coming of the French had awakened in the hearts of the people, and to the Cairenes it must have seemed on that most miserable of nights as if the realisation of all the worst of those fears was but the question of a few moments. As the evening had fallen had they not seen the columns of flame-emblazoned smoke that to them were a proof of the ferocious fury of the foe? Had they not seen the Mamaluk Chiefs, the bravest of the brave, fleeing for life with breathless haste? With no arms, no leaders, nothing but instant flight as the only means of safety they could conceive, surely a people who had not been panic-stricken in such dire peril would have been a nation of heroes such as the world has never yet seen!

But if safety for them lay outside the city, it was not beneath its walls, for there the Bedouin tribesmen, whom Ibrahim Bey had summoned to assist him in the defence of the town, disappointed of the plunder of the French army to which they had looked forward as their only inducement to take part in the contest, with untroubled consciences turned to the pillage of the unhappy fugitives as a heaven-sent compensation for their unrealised hopes. Nor were they content with the rich plunder that thus easily fell into their hands, but with wanton savagery murdered the men and outraged and slew the women. Thus finding at the hands of their co-religionists, who had been summoned for their defence, no better mercy than the unrestrained cruelty they feared from the French, the unhappy people, or at least so many of them as escaped from the Bedouins, returned to their homes, while the Mamaluk Chiefs and their followers rode away through the desert indifferent to the fate of all they had left behind them.

Meanwhile the French army, after a short rest, had advanced along the left bank of the river as far as Ghizeh, a village lying in the line between the city and the pyramids, where Bonaparte decided to encamp. On their way from Embabeh the troops had an opportunity of seeing across the river the town of Cairo and the nearly mile-wide stretch of open land lying between, studded with the gardens and summer residences of some of the wealthier of the Beys. Elated by their victory, and perhaps still more so by the rich loot they had gleaned from the dead bodies of their fallen foes, they forgot the fatigues of their long advance, and set themselves to enjoy the rest they so much needed and the comparatively luxurious fare they expected to compensate them for all the hardships they had endured. Many were the castles that rose in the air as they sat around the bivouac fires, and joked and jested until, wearied by the labours of the day, "Nature's soft nurse" lulled them to the repose she withheld from their vanquished enemies.

But the coming of daylight on the morrow of the battle brought to the horror-whelmed citizens some small gleam of comfort. Fugitives from the west bank of the river told them how the French had settled peacefully down at Ghizeh, and people coming into the town from Boulac explained the fires that had added so much to the terror of the night. With the calmer mood thus induced came the remembrance of what they had heard of the mildness and humanity of the French at Alexandria and Rosetta, and along the line of their advance, and though the mourners were wailing for their dead and missing in every street and corner of the town, and their homes had been dismantled or disordered by the flight of the night before, and swept by the thieves of the city of whatever had been left behind, the people still, as ever, impulsive and hopeful, began with the truest of courage to repair as best they might the havoc that awful night had wrought, and to face the fears and dangers yet before them with a spirit little short of heroism.

Early in the morning the Ulema and the few leading men who remained in the town gathered together to consult as to what course it would be best for them to follow. They had not much scope for discussion, for they recognised from the first that the only question left for them to deal with was how best to conciliate the conquerors. Eventually it was agreed to send a deputation to the French camp to announce their submission and crave the forbearance and protection of the French General, and thus to ascertain as far as possible what they had to hope and what to fear. Tactless as he is in a moment of emergency, when he stays to take thought with himself in calm and serious mood, the Egyptian not unfrequently shows a wisdom that his critics seldom accord him. Thus, wholly inexperienced as they were in such diplomatic matters, they wisely judged that to send as the representatives of the town men who could claim to be neutrals would tend to further the objects of their mission. Two Maghribeen Sheikhs—that is members of the Ulema from the Barbary States—were therefore selected, and with many injunctions and entreaties counselled to plead the cause of the town in the most earnest manner they could achieve. Accompanied by the prayers and blessings of the whole population, the deputation, not without some small lingering doubt as to the nature of the reception that might await it, set out for Guizeh.