DEDICATION:  to BONAPARTE
To combine the lustre of your Name with the splendour of the Monuments of Egypt, is to associate the glorious annals of our own time with the history of the heroic age; and to reanimate the dust of Sesostris and Mendes, like you Conquerors, like you Benefactors.

Europe, by learning that I accompanied you in one of your most memorable Expeditions, will receive my Work with eager interest.  I have neglected nothing in my power to render it worthy of the Hero to whom it is inscribed.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:
It is presumed that an account, by an eyewitness, of the romantic but unprovoked invasion of Egypt by General Bonaparte, will not be uninteresting to the British Public.  The Author, a member of the Institute of Cairo, and an excellent draftsman, was selected to accompany the troops designed for the conquest of Upper Egypt, that under the protection of a military effort he might have an opportunity of examining those stupendous remains, and eternal documents of the ancient civilisation of the country, to which its then unsettled state had denied a peaceable admission.  Hence the work contains an agreeable mixture of incident and description: and if the journal of the desultory operations of a campaign against an enemy, whose rapid motions, whose invincible courage, whose persevering bravery always rendered him a formidable opponent, interrupts unseasonable now and then an account of the venerable monuments of Thebers or Tentrya; yet this very interruption becomes a stimulus to curiosity, and the attention of the reader, though kept up active to the last, will not be withdrawn ungratified.  Citizen Denon, not being a soldier by profession, and therefore not hardened to the atrocities of war, has, notwithstanding his natural partiality towards his countrymen, and his personal regard for many of the chiefs in the expedition, given a fairer account of the treatment which the natives underwent from their invaders, than we are likely to receive from any other quarter: and, indeed, of the campaigns in Upper Egypt, he is as yet the only historian: in this view, therefore, his narrative is of peculiar value.  We see what a dreadful licence of lust, rapine, and slaughter, the French troops were allowed to indulge in, and how whole villages were exterminated upon the bare suspicion of meditating resistance to the ravishers of their women, the desolators of their fields, the incendiaries of the houses.  We see that so far from conciliating the esteem of the Egyptians, the French dominion was confined to the range of their cannon, that their stragglers were cut off like proscribed beasts of prey; and, presser by the Arabs on one side, and Murad-Bey on the other, they were kept in a constant state of watchfulness and alarm.  The military transactions, however, are neither the most pleasing, not the prominent feature of the work: the Author was by necessity a soldier, but by profession an artist, and a man of letters; hence the remains of the architecture, the sculpture, and the painting of the ancient Egyptians, were the principal objects of his attention; and these he has described both by words and the pencil, so as to render them highly interesting to all those whom ancient Greece derived her sublimest philosophy, and which is inseparably connected with the earlier ages of the Jewish history...

Chapter III

On the 2nd the sea was less ruffled.  We got under way, and perceived that the beach was filled with out soldiers.  By noon they were under the walls of Alexandria, the centre being stationed at Pompey's pillar, behind some small hillocks formed by the ruins of the ancient city.  The old walls presented to the valour of our soldiery a succession of breaches.  As soon as one of the columns was in motion, the others drew up in battle array, marched, and attacked at the same time.  In approaching some old ditches, they discovered more walls than they had been able to see at a first view.  A very heavy fire kept up by the besieged, surprised out troops for a moment, but did not check their impetuosity.  The most practicable approach was sought under the fire of the enemy: it was found at the west angle, where was situated the ancient port of Kibotos.  Our troops stormed: Kleber, Menou, and Lescale were wounded by the enemy's fire, and by the fall of fragments of walls.  Koraim, Sheikh of Alexandria, who was in every part of the battle, mistook Menou for the commander in chief mortally wounded.  In this way the courage of the besieged was supported for a short time.  Our adversaries maintained their ground; and we were under the necessity of putting the whole of them to death at the breach, where two hundred of our soldiers fell.

Our frigate was ordered to protect the entry of the convoy into the old port; and I availed myself of this opportunity to go on shore.  An old prophecy had said, that as soon as a French vessel should enter the old port, Alexandria would cease to be in possession of the Mussulmans.  Our boat verified this prediction for the moment.

It would be impossible for me to describe what I felt on landing at Alexandria, where there was no one to receive us, or to prevent our going on shore.  We could scarcely prevail on a group of beggars, leaning on their crutches, to point out to us the headquarters.  All the houses were shut: those who had not dared to fight had fled; and those who had not been killed in the combat, had concealed themselves, for fear of being put to death, according to the oriental custom.  Everything was new to our sensations; the soil, the form of the buildings, the persons, customs, and language of the inhabitants.  The first prospect which presented itself to our view, was an extensive burying-ground, covered with innumerable tombstones of white marble, on a white soil.  Among these monuments were seen wandering several meagre women, with long tattered garments, resembling so many ghosts.  The silence was only interrupted by the screeching of the kites which hovered over this sanctuary of death.  We passed from thence into narrow and deserted streets.  In crossing Alexandria, the description which Volney has given of that city was brought to my remembrance; form, colour, and sensation, every thing, in short, is represented by him with such a degree of truth, that, on looking over his work some months after, I fancied that I was entering Alexandria once more.  Had Volney described all Egypt in the same way, no one would ever have thought it necessary to undertake any other description, or to make any new drawings of that country.

During the whole of my progress through this long and melancholy city, Europe and its gaiety were brought to my recollection only by the chirping and activity of the sparrows.  I could not recognise the dog, the friend of man, the faithful and generous companion, the gay and loyal courtier.  Here this animal is a dull and selfish brute, a stranger to the master beneath whose roof he dwells, and, separated from the inmates without ceasing to be a slave, loses sight of him whose asylum he defends, and on whose bleeding carcass he feeds without abhorrence.  The following anecdote will fully portray his character.

On the day of my landing, having neglected to bring ashore linen to shift myself, I was desirous to go on board the Junon frigate, which I thought was stationed off the entrance to the harbour.  I hired a small Turkish bark, and we steered towards that point.  Having reached the frigate, we found that it was not the Junon; and another was pointed out to us in the road at half a league's distance.  The sun was setting: I had already made two-thirds of my way; and it was still possible to sleep on board.  We now sailed towards the frigate in the road, which was still not the Junon: she was cruising in the offing: we were therefore under the necessity of returning; but the breeze had freshened, and the swell was so great, that it was with difficulty we could bend our course.  My conductor gave me charge of the tiller, to bestow his whole attention to the sail.

It was not easy for me to find the direction in which I was to steer; and I now began to feel that it was in a manner devoting one's self to destruction, to be at such a time of night at the mercy of the winds, on a rough sea, and without any other companion that one who, in common with all his countrymen, had every reason to avenge himself on any of that nation who might fall in his way.  I put on a confidential air, and even affected to be gay: we at length reached the shore, the object of all my hopes and wishes: it was, however, eleven o'clock at night.  I was half a league away from headquarters; and I had to cross a city which had been taken by storm in the morning, with not one of the streets of which I was acquainted.  I could not prevail on my boatman, by any offer of recompense, to leave his bark and accompany me.  I set out alone, and, defying the ghosts of the dead, crossed the burying-ground, the road with which I was most familiar.  As soon as I had reached the nearest habitations of the living, I was assailed by multitudes of ferocious curs, which attached me from the doors, the streets, and the housetops.  Their yelping was continued from house to house, and from family to family.  I could perceive, however, that the war which the waged against me was not a war of coalition, for as soon as I had passed the property of those by which I had been attacked, they were driven back by those which came to receive me at the frontiers.  Not knowing the abject state in which they live, I dared not strike them, from an apprehension of their howling, and thus kindling up the wrath of their masters against me.  The darkness was diminished by the light of the stars only, and by the transparency which the night always has in this climate.  To profit by this small portion of light, and to escape from the yelping of the curs, and take a road which could not lead me astray, I quitted the streets, and resolved to take a road which could not lead me astray, I quitted the streets, and resolved to walk along the beach.  My passage was, however, barred by the walls and timber-yards, which extended to the seashore.  At length, after wading through the sea to shun the curs, and scaling the walls to avoid the sea when there was too great a depth, wet, covered with perspiration, and exhausted by terror and fatigue, I reached one of our out-posts at midnight, fully persuaded that curs are the sixth, and the most dreadful of the plagues of Egypt.

In the morning, on arriving at the headquarters, I found Bonaparte surrounded by the grandees of the city, and by the members of the old government, from whom he received the oath of fidelity.  He addressed himself in the following terms to the Sheikh Koraim:
"I have taken you in arms, and I might treat you as a prisoner: as you have, however, behaved with courage, and as I think bravery inseparable from honour, I give you back your arms, and I think that you will be as faithful to the republic as you have been to a bad government."
I could distinguish in the countenance of this able, enterprising man, a dissimulation, shaken, but not subdued, by the generous conduct of the commander in chief.  He was not as yet acquainted with our resources, and entertained some doubt whether what had passed was not owing to a coup-de-main!  But when he saw thirty thousand men, and the heavy ordnance and field-pieces landed, he endeavoured to captivate the good graces of Bonaparte, was never absent from head-quarters, and was in the anti-chamber before the commander in chief was out of bed, a circumstances very remarkable in a Mussulman.

The first drawing I made was a view of the new port, from the small sand-bank to the quarter of the Francs, which, in Cleopatra's time, was the delightful spot on which her palace was built, and where the theatre stood.

On the 4th, in the morning, I accompanied the commander in chief, who visited the forts, that is to say, a collection of clumsy buildings in a ruinous sate, in which worn-out guns rested on stones that served them for carriages.  The general's orders were to demolish whatever was unserviceable, and to repair only what might be useful, to prevent the approach of the Bedouins.  He paid particular attention to the batteries for the defence of the harbours.

We passed near Pompey's pillar.  This monument is in the predicament of almost every thing famous, which loses on a near scrutiny.  It was named Pompey's pillar in the fifteenth century, when learning began to recover itself from the torpid state in which it had so long languished.  At that epoch, men of science, but not observers, bestowed names on all the monuments; and these names have been handed down by tradition, and without being disputed, from century to century.  A monument had been raised to Pompey at Alexandria: it had disappeared, and was thought to be recovered in this pillar or column, which has since been converted into a trophy erected to the memory of Septimius Severus.  It is, however, placed on the ruins of the ancient city; and in the time of Septimius Severus, the city of the Ptolomies was not in a ruinous state.  To support this column by a solid foundation, an obelisk has been sunk in the each, on which is placed a very clumsy pedestal, having a fine shaft, and surmounted by a Corinthian capital of bad workmanship.  (See plate IV, no. 3)

If the shaft of this column, separating it from the pedestal and the capital, once belonged to an ancient edifice, it is an evidence of its magnificence, and of the skill with which it was executed.  It ought therefore to be said, that what is called Pompey's pillar, is a fine column, and not a fine monument; and that a column is not a monument.  It should be said, that the column of St. Maria Maggiore, notwithstanding it is one of the finest in existence, has not the character of a monument; that it is merely a fragment; and that, if the columns of Trajan and Antoninus are not in the same predicament, it is because they appear as colossal cylinders, on which the history of the glorious expeditions of these two emperors is pompously displayed, and which, if reduced to their simple forms and dimensions, would be nothing more than dull and heavy monuments.

The earth about the foundations of Pompey's pillar having been cleared away by time, two fragments of an obelisk of white marble, the only monument of that substance which I have seen in Egypt, have been added to the original base, to render it more solid.

Excavations made round the circumference of this column, would, no doubt, afford some information relative to its origin.  The shaking of the earth, and the form it takes on threading on it, seem to attest that these researches would not be fruitless.  They would perhaps discover the base and atrium of the portico to which this column belonged, which has been the subject of dissertations made my literati who have seen the drawings only, or whose information has been limited to the descriptions of travellers.  These travellers have neglected to apprise them that fragments of columns of the same substance and diameter are found in the vicinity; and that the shaking of the earth indicates the destruction of the great edifices buried beneath, the forms of which may be distinguished on the surface, such as a square of a considerable size, and a large circus, the principal dimensions of which may be measured, notwithstanding it is covered with sand and ruins.

After having observed that the column, entitled Pompey's pillar, is very chaste both in style and execution; that the pedestal and capital are not formed of the same granite as the shaft; that their workmanship is heavy, and appears to be merely a rough draught; and that the foundations, made up of fragments, indicate a modern construction; it may be concluded, that this monument is not antique, and that it may have been erected either in the time of the Greek emperors, or of the caliphs; since, if the capital and pedestal are well enough wrought to belong to the former of these periods, they are not so perfect but that art may have reached so far in the latter.

Subterraneous researches made on this sport might also ascertain the site of the city in the time of the Ptolomies, when its commerce and splendour changed its original plan, and rendered it immense.  That of the caliphs, which still exists, was but a diminution of the ancient city, notwithstanding it comprehends within itself, at this time, plains and deserts.  This circumvalation being built of ruins, the edifices bring unceasingly to the remembrance destruction and ravage.  The jambs and lintels of the doors of the dwelling houses and fortresses consist entirely of columns of granite, which the workmen have not taken the pains to shape to the use to which they have applied them.  They appear to have been left there merely with a view to attest the grandeur and magnificence of the buildings, the ruins of which they are.  In other places a great number of columns have been applied to the construction of the walls, to support and level them; and these columns, having resisted the ravages of time, now resemble batteries.  In short, these Arabian and Turkish buildings, the productions of the necessities of war, display a confusion of epochs, and of various industries, more striking and more approximated examples of which are no where else to be found.  The Turks, more especially, adding absurdity to profanation, have not only blended with the granite, bricks and calcareous stones, but even logs and planks; and from these different elements, which have so little analogy to each other, and are so strangely united, have presented a monstrous assemblage of the splendour of human industry, and its degradation.

In returning from Pompey's pillar to the modern city, we passed through that of the Arabs, or rather the one which was encompassed by their walls, for at this time it is merely a desert containing a few enclosures, which, during the months of the inundation, are gardens, and which at other times afford nourishment to a greater or smaller number of trees and vegetables, in proportion to the size of the cistern with which each is provided.  This cistern is the source and principle of their existence: when it fails the gardens are once more converted into sand and rubbish.

At the gate of each of these gardens are to be seen monuments of a benevolent and charitable feeling.  These are reservoirs into which water is pumped as often as it is necessary, and which present to the way-worn traveller what is needful to satisfy his most pressing want in this burning climate - thirst.

The conduits of the cisterns are to be seen everywhere, communicating with each other, and having their orifices covered by the base or capital of an ancient column, hollowed out in the centre, and answering the purpose of the stone which surrounds the mouth of a well.

For the construction of a new cistern, it is sufficient to dig and bank in reservoirs of different depths, and afterwards to cut a drain, carrying it on until it meets with another excavation.  In this way it receives the common benefits of the inundation, which, by the level that the water seeks, fills the whole of the vacuum presented to it.  The great pool or conservatory of water at Alexandria, is one of the principal antiquities of the middle age of Egypt, and one if the finest monuments of that description, whether its size be considered, or the intelligence which its construction displays.  Notwithstanding one part of it is in a very ruinous state, and the other in need of repairs, it contains a quantity of water which suffices for the consumption of men and animals during two years.  We arrived at Alexandria in the month preceding that in which the water was to be renewed, and we found it very good and sweet.

Our attention was attracted by a ruin of a reddish hue, which the catholics call the house of St. Catharine the learned, relative to whom they have a tradition, that she was wedded to Jesus Christ four centuries after his death.  This ruin is of Roman construction; and the conduits, covered by stalactites, imply that it was formerly a bath.

We came afterwards to the obelisk, named Cleopatra's needle: another obelisk thrown down at its side, indicates that both of them formerly decorated one of the entrances of the palace of the Ptolomies, the ruins of which are still to be seen at some distance from thence.  An inspection into the present state of these obelisks, and the fissures which existed at the time even when they were fixed to this spot, prove that they were merely fragments at that period, and that they had been brought from Memphis, or from upper Egypt.  They might be conveyed to France without difficulty, and would there become a trophy of conquest, and a very characteristic one, and as the hieroglyphics with which they are covered render them preferable to Pompey's pillar, which is merely a column, somewhat larger indeed than is every-where to be found.  On digging since round the base of this obelisk, it has been found that it was placed on a tablet of hard stone.  The pedestals which have always been added in Europe to this species of monument, are an ornament by which its character is changed.

On examining the Saracen monument in the vicinity of Cleopatra's needle, I found that its foundations belonged to a Greek or Roman edifice.  The capitals of connected columns, of the doric order, the shafts of which are sunk below the level of the sea, are still the be seen.  Strabo has observed, that the base of the palace of Ptolomy was washed by the sea.  These ruins may at one and the same time prove the veracity of Strabo's relation, and ascertain the site of that palace.

In returning to the lower part of the harbour by the seashore, ruins of edifices of different ages are to be found, having suffered alike from time and from the waves.  Vestiges of baths are the be distinguished there, several apartments of which still exist, having been posteriorly fabricated in walls of more remote antiquity.  These edifices appeared to me to be of Arabic construction; and for their preservation, a kind of pile work in columns has been made, which has now the resemblance of floating batteries.  Their immense number evinces the magnificence of the palaces the once decorated.  After having passed the extremity of the harbour, large Saracen edifices are met with, having an air of grandeur, and a mixture of style, by which the observer is perplexed.  Friezes ornamented with doric triglyphs, and surmounted by arched vaults, would lead one to imagine that these edifices were constructed from antique fragments, which the Saracens blended to adapt them to the style of their architecture.  The doors of these edifices may give an idea of the indestructible quality of the sycamore wood, which has remained unaltered, while the iron work of the doors has yielded to time, and entirely disappeared.  Behind this kind of fortress, are Arabian baths, most magnificently decorated.  Our soldiers, who found them ready heated, had taken possession of them to wash their linen, so that no other use could then be made of them.  I shall therefore defer my description to this kind of baths to another opportunity, and refer my readers, who wish to have an idea of the pleasure which they communicate, to the one which Savary has given.

Near these baths, one of the principal mosques, formerly a primitive church entitles Saint Athanasius, is situated.  This edifice, in as ruinous state as its style is magnificent, may give some idea of the carelessness of the Turks relative to the objects of which they are the most jealous.  Before our arrival, they did not suffer a christian to approach this building, and chose rather to place a sentinel over it that to repair the doors, which, in the state in which we found them, would neither shut nor turn on their hinges.

In the middle of the court-yard of this mosque is a small octagonal temple, which contains a bowl of Egyptian black marble, with white and yellow spots, of incomparable beauty, both on account of the substance of which it is formed, and of the innumerable hieroglyphical figures with which it is covered, both withinside and without.  This monument, which is without doubt a sarcophagus of ancient Egypt, will perhaps be hereafter illustrated by volumes of dissertations.  It may be considered as a very valuable antique, and as one of more precious spoils in Egypt, with which it is to be wished that our national museum may be enriched.  Dolomieu, who was with me when this valuable monument was discovered, partook of my enthusiasm.

From the galleries of the minaret or tower of this mosque, I made the drawing, which contains a bird's eye view of every part of the new harbour.  Close to the mosque are three upright columns, which have not been noticed by any traveller.  It would appear by the delicate workmanship of these columns, that they constituted a part of some antique monuments: it would therefore be interesting to dig around their bases.  The wide space, however, which the occupy, would lead to a conjecture, that they are not stationed where they were originally intended to be placed.  Be this as it may, they are the remains of a large and magnificent edifice.

We proceeded from thence to the gate of Rosetta, which is fortified, and at which the Turks defended themselves on our arrival.  Here a group of houses forms a kind of town, which leaves an unoccupied space of half a league between this part of the city and that which is in the vicinity of the ports.  All the horrors of war still existed in this quarter, where I met with an incident which afforded me the strongest contrast possible.  A young woman, fair and with a ruddy complexion, was seated, surrounded by the dead and by the rubbish, on a fragment of a ruin still covered with blood.  She was the picture of the angel of the resurrection.  When attracted by a compassionate feeling, I testified my surprise at finding her in this forlorn state, she told me, with a charming ingenuousness, that she was waiting for her husband, with whom she was going to pass the night in the desert.  To her this was no difficulty: she was about to repair thither to sleep with as little reluctance as if a down bed was to be her portion.  From this anecdote some idea may be formed of the lot which awaited the women whom love had inspired with the courage to follow their husbands on this expedition.

The greater part of the division, after they were landed, had merely passed through Alexandria to encamp in the desert.  I was also under the necessity of quitting this city, a place of great importance in history, where the monuments of every epoch, and the wrecks of the arts of so many nations, are heaped together confusedly; and where the ravages of wars, ages, and of a humid climate, impregnated with sea-salt, have been productive of greater changes, and have wrought more mischief than in any other part of Egypt.