“In the course of the next Decade I shall sail to the Canal which is now cutting across the Isthmus of Suez. The Polytechnic School and Corps of Geographical Engineers are employed in devising means for conveying my heavy artillery across the great Desert. Soon shall India hail us as her Deliverers, and those proud islanders, the Tyrants of Calcutta, fall before the Heroes of Arcola.
“The Members of the National Institute who accompanied the Squadron to Egypt, have made a large collection of Antiquities for the use of the Republic. Among the scattered remains of the Alexandrine Library, they have found a curious Treatise, in Arabic, respecting Camels, from which it appears that Human Beings, by proper treatment, may, like those useful animals, be trained to support thirst and hunger without complaining. Many reams of papyrus have been collected, as it is thought that during the present scarcity of linen and old rags in France, it may answer all the purposes of paper. Cleopatra’s celebrated Obelisk has been shipped on board the Admiral’s Ship L’Orient, cidevant Sans Culottes: Another man-of-war has been freighted with the Sphinx, which our Engineers removed from Grand Cairo, and which, I trust, will be thought a proper ornament for the Hall of Audience of the Directory.—The cage in which Bajazet was confined, has been long preserved at Bassora; it will be transmitted to Paris as a proper model for a new Cayenne Diligence.—I beg leave to present to the Director Merlin, a very curious book, bound in Morocco leather, from Algiers. It is finely illuminated with gold; and contains lists of the various fees usually received by Deys and their Ministers from Foreign Ambassadors. A broken Column will be sent from Carthage. It records the downfall of that Commercial City; and is sufficiently large for an Inscription (if the Directory should think proper to place it on the Banks of the Thames), to inform posterity that it marks the spot where London once stood.
“Health and Respect,
“BUONAPARTÉ.”
No. XXXIV.
July 2, 1798.
ODE TO A JACOBIN.
FROM SUCKLING’S ODE TO A LOVER.
I.
Unchristian Jacobin whoever,