I was soon taken into a large square building, having a square court in the centre, and piazzas round about from the bottom to the top; the ground flat, which was high in the roof, was occupied as cellars, store-houses, &c. There were two flats above, the various apartments of which communicated with piazza'd passages, round the centre square. This building, from the largeness of its size, and the number of its apartments, accommodated a great many patients, consisting of men of all the different regiments, promiscuously lodged together.
In coming into a place of this kind, among so many strange faces, and various and opposite characters, it is a matter of some consequence to meet with some one previously known, to whom you can talk, in whom you can place confidence, and who will act the part of a comrade. In this respect I was fortunate; falling in with a man of my own company, whose bed was next to mine: a young man of agreeable dispositions. He was the rear rank man of the second file from my right, in the battle of the 13th March, who got the calf of his leg grazed by the cannon ball, as formerly related. His leg was now in a hopeful way; and being able to move about with the help of a stick, he was serviceable to me who was confined to bed. In this building we were more cool than on the sands of Aboukir; the flies were not so excessively troublesome through the day; and as the floor, which was upon arches, was paved with flat stones, or large bricks, the fleas were not so numerous. But a new enemy attacked us during the night, which we had not met with before—the mosquitoes. They were very troublesome; and there was no way of securing ourselves from their bite, which was very sharp, and for a while had an inflammatory effect; so much so, that every one for some time after his arrival, resembled a person in the height of the measles. Our accommodation and attendance were much better here in many respects. We were provided with sheets for our beds, which was very agreeable; for a sheet was as much as one could bear for a covering during the night; nor was even that needed so much for heat, as to be a partial defence against the musquitoes. Our woollen blankets, which would have been quite uncomfortable from their heat, were very useful now to put under us; for our beds being made of branches of the date tree, put across each other, with a slender matt, made of a particular kind of rushes, laid over them to cover the holes, the cross spars soon became prominent, and were very uneasy to lie upon. My knapsack was my pillow, and my blanket, folded four-ply, I put under me. Without it indeed, it would not have been possible to lie in the beds; and even with it, they were very uncomfortable, especially for those who were long and close confined to them.
I had not been in Rosetta above a fortnight, when my wound again inflamed and mortified in a most alarming degree; the leg swelled excessively, and the wound became large and jet black, with a most offensive smell. I was very much alarmed; I beheld many dying, whose wounds were in a similar state, and some of them apparently not so bad; the severity of pain deprived me of appetite: nor could I so much as drink the wine that was allowed me. The pain continued to increase; the discharge from the wound was great; I was reduced to a skeleton, and my strength was failing fast; I was at the gates of death; and, with eternity before me, I was destitute of that discernment of the merits and grace of the Great Redeemer, which alone can form a sure ground of confidence, and a true source of consolation to a poor sinner, ready to perish. I again reflected on my past life, and accused myself of want of firmness in my resolutions. I thought God had now afflicted me in order to make me hate sin, and love righteousness; and that were I again restored to health, and free from pain, nothing in this world would be able to make me leave my duty: and I flattered myself that what I had now suffered had destroyed the love of sin in my heart. Under this persuasion, being in agony through the severity of pain, I exclaimed, "Lord, let it suffice thee, for it is enough; take but thine hand from me this once!" Although this was not a prayer becoming a sinner ready to perish, which ought to have been a supplication for mercy for the sake of Christ; yet God was pleased in his compassion to grant me the thing I sought. He did remove his hand, and spare my life; the mortification, after having raged about three weeks, subsided; the putrid flesh began to fall away; the burning pain left the wound; and in about ten days it was clean; but the mortification had detached, and wholly destroyed, the greater part of the tendon of the heel. I now looked upon myself as one that had been rescued from the grave, and the occurrences that took place immediately, tended still more strongly to impress this upon my mind. The wound of my comrade, who had been serviceable to me when I was so ill, as I began to mend, grew worse, inflamed, and in a few days, nearly the whole of the calf of his leg was one putrid mass. A blood-vessel burst in it during the night; but he was in such pain, that he was not sensible of the bleeding, which continued until day break; when the floor under and around his bed was covered with blood. The surgeon was sent for, to whom he said, "I believe Sir, I have been bleeding to death in the night time, and was not sensible of it." The bleeding had now ceased, but he was so weak that he was unable to speak; and he died in a few hours, and was carried out and buried. The Saviour's words, "One shall be taken and the other left," struck me forcibly in these circumstances: when my comrade, who was so shortly before in a fairer way of recovery than I was, was thus cut off, and I was left as a monument of God's sparing mercy.
His bed was not long empty. In a few days an Irish grenadier was brought to it, whose case was truly hopeless. He had had a boil on the lower part of the breast, which had mortified; the mortification had spread over the breast, and had eaten a hole larger than a dollar into the chest, so that when the dressing was off, the inside of the chest was visible. He lived in great agony for about six days, and died; by which time the hole into the chest was much larger.—In a few days after, the same bed was filled by an artilleryman, a townsman of my own, who had got the calf of one of his legs accidentally bruised. The leg inflamed; amputation was resorted to; but, with all the attention the surgeons paid to him, he also died in a very short time. My wound continued to mend; and as soon as I was able to move, I got a crutch and a staff, and a strap to support my leg, and got out of bed for a part of the day, after having been confined to it nearly six months.
This was about the middle of September, before the Nile had attained the height of its inundation. I passed a part of the day, sitting in one of the front windows which looked to the Nile, and remarked its daily progress. As I grew stronger, I got upon the roof of the building, which was flat, and had a view of the town and the surrounding country. In the country, on the opposite side of the Nile, nothing was to be seen, as far as the eye could reach, but water, with the trees standing in it. I travelled about too, visiting my acquaintances in the hospital who belonged to the same regiment with myself.
Some of the Arab watermen were employed to supply the hospital with water. They brought it from the Nile[[16]] upon their backs, in the skins of goats slung across their shoulders. The skin had been sewed up after being taken off the animal, and was in its natural shape; the neck part being left open for filling and emptying. (This was simply twisted and held together with the hand, when the skin was to be immediately emptied; but it might be tied, when it was to be kept full, or carried to a distance.) All kinds of liquids, even wine and honey are kept in these skins.—This illustrates the parable of the new wine and old bottles, Luke v. 37, 38. The bottles were skins: and, as wine is a fermented liquor, the skin bottles, once used, would be so much impregnated with the wine that had been in them, that if new wine were put into them, it would cause it to ferment anew; and this would burst them. The original inmates of the hospital were now greatly reduced; a number having recovered, and a great many having died: but it was not allowed in any part to remain empty. Grand Cairo having surrendered to the British and Turkish forces on the 24th June, the sick of our own army were sent down the Nile; and they filled up all the vacancies. Cases of dysentery, and sore eyes, were so numerous, that a number of buildings were fitted up in Rosetta for their reception. Many died of the dysentery; but those afflicted with sore eyes were most numerous, and much to be pitied.—Their torment was excessive: the pain in their eyes was as if they had been filled with burning sand, they had no respite from acute sufferings; and many lost their sight in spite of all the power of medicine. About the end of August, my own eyes became dreadfully inflamed in one night. The surgeon applied a very large blister in the morning, and by next day the inflammation was greatly subsided, but I did not get wholly free of it until I left Egypt, and was several days at sea on the way to Malta. The Egyptian ophthalmia was one of the most dreadful calamities that ever befel the British army.
The French that were in Cairo, amounting to 13000, were embarked and sent to France in the month of August.
As my leg continued to mend, I felt grateful to God for his great mercy to me; but it was not long, until I had to accuse myself of having failed in duty, and come short of my promise; and this threw me into dejection of mind; which however wore gradually off. As I had much leisure time, I read more of my Bible than formerly; but the historical parts attracted my attention more than the doctrinal. Happening to read through the beginning of Exodus, I was struck when I found, that I had made use of the same words that Pharaoh used to Moses, chap. ix. ver. 28, and which he afterwards repeated, chap. x. ver. 17. This made me fear, lest I should prove like Pharaoh; and in place of being softened by mercies, and bound by gratitude, become hardened by them and perish in the end. I then recollected, that I had heard Dr. Balfour preach, from Hebrews iii. 12, 13, I remembered the words, "lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin," and I turned to the passage and read it. It led me to ponder on the deceitful nature, and dangerous tendency of sin; which increased my fear that I might become hardened, and made my mind very uneasy. I would sometimes think on the instructions I had got, and the tasks I had learned at the Sabbath school; which I had now almost forgotten: I remembered some little of the seventeenth chapter of John, for the learning of which, myself and others had received a penny. This led me to read it, and the fifty-third of Isaiah, which also I had learned; but I did not understand its import, although familiar with the words. I then turned over all the parallel passages, that I had read, in proof of doctrines in the school; and although I did not understand those that treated of the way of a sinner's acceptance with God, by faith in the righteousness and atonement of the great Redeemer, yet it helped to keep the words of Scripture relative to these doctrines on my memory, which was of use to me afterwards. But the doctrines of heaven, and hell, the resurrection, and eternal judgment, are more readily apprehended: and these made increasingly strong impressions on my mind.
I was now pretty certain that I was unfit for military service; and from Egypt, the land of bondage, I cast a longing eye to my native home, and wished myself there, that I might enjoy the benefits of a Sabbath, the instructions of religious teachers, and freedom from the society of the wicked. All my hopes now centered in this, and had I despaired of it, I would have given myself over for lost.
After the French were embarked who had surrendered at Cairo, our troops which had been there, rejoined the army that was blockading Alexandria. Several regiments had lately come from England, so that it was now pretty strong. Alexandria was immediately besieged in form, and the operations pushed so vigorously, that the garrison was compelled to surrender on the 1st September, on condition of retaining their private property and being sent to France. Their number was about eleven thousand, of all descriptions. This event terminated hostilities in Egypt, and our troops prepared to leave it as soon as possible. Rosetta was occupied during the siege by a division of British, and Sepoys, natives of India, under the command of Sir David Baird, who had come from the East Indies to our assistance, with about seven thousand men. They had sailed up the Red sea, and marched through the desert, and arrived at Cairo shortly after it had surrendered. The Sepoys, when off duty, laid aside their uniforms, and walked about in the burning sun with nothing on the body but a pair of very short white drawers.