The Birth of Modern Egypt 29
fours because the Admiralty had allowed Nelson only one
frigate. As it was, the British fleet missed the French
flotilla by a few hours only off Malta, again off Crete,
and again off Alexandria, and did capture the vessel con-
taining all the apparatus of the hundred and twenty-two
egyptologists, a calamity which, though ominous, was
not overwhelming. But if there be any of us who doubts
the difference between British sea-power with and with-
out a Nelson, we have but to compare what happened
after the British fleet had let the French slip through
their fingers into Cairo with what happened a century
later after they had let the Germans slip through their
fingers into Constantinople. For Nelson was not the
man to let a second chance slip. The French fleet was
at once pursued to its moorings in Aboukir Bay off Alex-
andria and destroyed there (August i, 1798).
Napoleon, thus left "in the air," lost no time, and
-found little trouble in the military occupation of Egypt.
The French army of forty thousand veterans marched on
Cairo across the desert in hollow square, with the hun-
dred and twenty-two missionaries of modern civilisation
safe in the middle, while the gorgeous magnates of
medieval Islam caracoled on the horizon in scornful
observation. At last one, confident that the age of
chivalry still lived, rode in full panoply of damascened
armour and embroidered silk to within a few yards of
the marching troops, and challenged their Colonel to
single combat. But irritated with heat, hunger, and
thirst, for the swarming Bedawin had cut them off from
their commissariat boats, the French only replied with a
volley that blew the champion of chivalry into blood-
stained loot.
The ensuing Battle of the Pyramids, in which the
Mamelukes tried to bar French entry into Cairo, was only