Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1862-04-10

sang and danced in the exhuberance of joy.
Pigeons were abundant, and the most deli
cious watermelons were brought to the
camp in exhaustless numbers.
But scarcely an hour was allowed for rest
Day after day, the army was pushed ener-
getically on, encountering the foe, but never
in sufficient force to arrest their progress
The delay of few days would have enabled
the enemy to concentrate so as to organize
very formidable resistance. The Name
luke horsemen composed the most formida-
BILE body of cavalry in the world On their
fleet Arabian chargers they came sweeping,
almost resistlessly, from behind the hills,
and it was necessary to be prepared every
moment for an attack. The disposition
made of the troops for this purpose was novel
and effective. The army was organized in
five squares, each square composed of ranks
six men deep The artillery was placed at
the angles. The centres of these squares
we're occupied by the officers, the baggage,
and by troops in platoons ready at any in
slant to support the point of attack. When
on the march, all faced in one direction,
the two sides marching in flank At any
alarm they halted and fronted on every
side the outer ranks kneeling, that those
behind might shoot over their heads. The
whole square thus presented diving fortress,
bristling with bayonets, which no cavalry
could penetrate.
When necessary to make an assault the
three front ranks detached themselves from
the square. The remaining three ranks still
preserved the integrity of the square, into
which the column could be received in case
of a repulse. On the morning of the 21st
of July, after an almost uninterrupted march
of fifteen days. the army came in sight of
the domes of Cairo. The city was on the
eastern bank of the river, while the narrow
but wonderfully luxuriant valley of the Nile
was bordered on the west by the apparently
illimitable desert, fringed by those gigantic
pyramids which, for ages, have been the
wonder of the world. The whole army in
stinctively halted, gazing awe-striken upon
these sublime memorials of the past '.Sol-
diers," said Napoleon. s'forty centuries,
from those SUBMITS, contemplate your ac-
TONS"
At the foot of these pyramids the whole
plain was filled with armed men, glittering
in all that barbaric display of plumes and
gold. and cleaning banners which has ever
characterized the Orient. Here Murad Bey
had assembled his great strength for final
resistance. Twentyfour thousand men were
placed behind the most formidable entrench-
ments, amply supplied with heavy guns,
and all the munitions of war. Ten thou
sand horsemen. magnifcently mounted, were
ready to plunge upon the French, with all
the fury fatalism can inspire, SO soon as the
Moslem artillery should make gap in their
ranks
1t must have been fearful hour for Ma
poleon. Defeat was annihilation, and VIC
tory seemed impossible. "You shall now
see us" said Murad Bey, "cut up those
dogs like gourds." Napoleon did not DELAY
the attack an hour. By lateral movement
he moved his squares to the right, that they
might be out of the range of the cnemy;s
guns, and might attack i'll flank. Ten