DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4794#0068
scrubbed well; and afterwards put into a
boat and sent on ship-board.
The easy surrender of St, Julien’s Castle
c_■
and the town of Rosetta inspired much hope,
and made General Hutchinson determine to
press his operations against the interior. —•
On the 2dtli, therefore, he arrived in person
at Rosetta ; and in his route visited the Cap.
tain Pacha, who had returned on-board his
ship in the Bay of Aboukir ; while General
Coote was left to command the army before
Alexandria, with a force now considerably
weakened, and from which still greater de-
ductions were to be made.
But how little the glowing descriptions of
the French writers are to be trusted will ap-
pear from the disappointment of the English
officers, when, instead of what M. Savary
represents Rosetta to be, they found that all
the boasted delights of that city consisted in
nothing more than the French writer’s com-
o
parison with the desart. The sight of any
verdure, after passing a barren tract, is cer-
tainly very gratifying ; and the more so as it
relieves us from those painful sensations that
result from a contrasted situation. The
houses of Rosetta are formed of a dingy red
brick; the streets are not above two yards
wide ; and many of the houses were pulled
down, while the French were there, for want
of fuel. But the wretchedness of the inha-
bitants was of that cast as to lead to a doubt
whether the objects of it were human. The
blind are so numerous, that every fifth person
&
boat and sent on ship-board.
The easy surrender of St, Julien’s Castle
c_■
and the town of Rosetta inspired much hope,
and made General Hutchinson determine to
press his operations against the interior. —•
On the 2dtli, therefore, he arrived in person
at Rosetta ; and in his route visited the Cap.
tain Pacha, who had returned on-board his
ship in the Bay of Aboukir ; while General
Coote was left to command the army before
Alexandria, with a force now considerably
weakened, and from which still greater de-
ductions were to be made.
But how little the glowing descriptions of
the French writers are to be trusted will ap-
pear from the disappointment of the English
officers, when, instead of what M. Savary
represents Rosetta to be, they found that all
the boasted delights of that city consisted in
nothing more than the French writer’s com-
o
parison with the desart. The sight of any
verdure, after passing a barren tract, is cer-
tainly very gratifying ; and the more so as it
relieves us from those painful sensations that
result from a contrasted situation. The
houses of Rosetta are formed of a dingy red
brick; the streets are not above two yards
wide ; and many of the houses were pulled
down, while the French were there, for want
of fuel. But the wretchedness of the inha-
bitants was of that cast as to lead to a doubt
whether the objects of it were human. The
blind are so numerous, that every fifth person
&