who supplied him with engineers, artillerymen, and ammunition.  It was probable, moreover, that he would be soon relieved by the Turkish army collected in Syria, which was advancing from Damascus to cross the Jordan.  Bonaparte hastened to attack the place, in hopes of taking it, as he had done Jaffa, before it was reinforced with fresh troops, and before the English had time to improve its defences.  The trenches were immediately opened.  The siege artillery sent by sea from Alexandria had been intercepted by Sir Sidney Smith, who captured seven vessels out of the nine.  A breach was effected, and dispositions were made for the assault, but the men were stopped by a counterscarp and a ditch.  They immediately set about mining.  The operation was carried on under the fire of all the ramparts, and of the fine artillery which Sir Sidney Smith had taken from the French.  The mine was exploded on April 17th, and blew up only a portion of the counterscarp.  Unluckily for the French, the place had received a reinforcement of several thousand men, a great number of gunners trained after the European fashion, and immense supplies.  It was a siege on a large scale to be carried on with thirteen thousand men, almost entirely destitute of artillery.  It was necessary to open a new mine to blow up the entire counterscarp, and to commence another covered way.

Bonaparte now ordered Kleber’s division to oppose the passage of the Jordan by the army coming from Damascus.  The enemy was commanded by Abd Allah Pasha of Damascus, and numbered about twenty-five thousand men and twelve thousand horse.  A desperate battle was fought in the plain of Fouli, and for six hours Kleber, with scarcely three thousand infantry in square, resisted the utmost fury of the Turkish cavalry.  Bonaparte, who had been making a rapid march to join Kleber, suddenly made his appearance on the field of battle.  A tremendous fire, discharged instantaneously from the three points of this triangle, assailed the Mamluks who were in the midst, drove them in confusion upon one another, and made them flee in disorder in all directions.  Kleber’s division, fired with fresh ardour at this sight, rushed upon the village of Eouli, stormed it at the point of the bayonet, and made a great carnage among the enemy.  In a moment the whole multitude was gone, and the plain was left covered with dead.  During this interval the besiegers had never ceased mining and countermining about the walls of St. Jean d’Acre.  The siege of Acre lasted for sixty-five days.  Bonaparte made eight desperate but ineffectual assaults upon the city, which were repulsed by eleven furious sallies on the part of the besieged garrison.  It was absolutely necessary to relinquish the enterprise.  The strategic point in the East was lost.

[Illustration:  116b.jpg Cairo—­Eskibieh Quarter]