Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

232 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTwar against the French, Amir Ghalib, on receiving Bonaparte’s letter, showed aninclination to trade with Suez. 20On the twenty-eighth, Doguereau recalled, Bonaparte and some of histroops took advantage of a low tide to cross the Gulf of Suez at the head of theRed Sea, the water up to their horses’ bellies, and easily reached the shore of theSinai Peninsula on the other side. They drank the slightly brackish water of thesprings called the “fountains of Moses.” Bonaparte had the scientists lookaround, and they found the ruins of a square building and “a canal bringingwater just to the shore of the sea. Our scientists supposed that that was the placewhere the Venetian ships came to take on water when that nation used to conductcommerce with India by the Red Sea.” The commander in chief was alsointerested in the ancient shallow canal that classical sources alleged once linkedthe Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Such a canal would shave thousands of milesoff the journey from Marseilles to India, and if the French could ever rebuildtheir fleet and more effectively challenge British naval superiority, it mightallow them at last to challenge their rival in Asia. General Belliard spoke to oneof the sheikhs of Tur who inquired about their interest in Sinai geography,telling him, “If this route is found practicable . . . the commerce of India willonce again take its ancient course. Coffee, gums, all the products of Arabia, willflow on the Nile, and Egypt, become the entrepôt of the world, will recover itsantique splendor.” 21 India lurked in the background of this little expedition asboth threat and promise in the long term.At Bonaparte’s insistence, they stayed in the peninsula longer than was wise,and darkness began falling. Their Bedouin guides, fearing an attempt to ford thewater at night, had disappeared. The water, normally three to five feet deep, couldsurge in high winds and rough weather to double that. It submerged a mixture ofharder soil, soft mud, and sandy patches that functioned as quicksand. During theday, riders could distinguish these three through the limpid water. At night, thepassage turned treacherous, with horses sinking into mud or quicksand, and thetide rapidly rising. Not wanting to be marooned away from camp all night, theforce of sixty men cautiously attempted the return, taking bridles in hand.On the way back, Doguereau’s horse, facing water almost as high as hisback, tumbled into an underwater trough, and both rider and steed had to swimto the other shore. It is controversial whether Bonaparte had a similar mishap,and some say he had to be hauled along by his epaulettes at one point. The newsreached Suez of the misadventure and caused a little panic, but no men werelost. It became a cliché among the memoirists that Bonaparte almost met thepharaoh’s fate, of being drowned when the Red Sea closed up. The officers and