Thus they advanced in close formation towards the intrenched camp of the Mamelukes.

The divisions on the left at once rushed at its earthworks, silenced its feeble artillery, and slaughtered the fellahin inside.
But the other divisions, now ranged in squares, while gazing at this exploit, were assailed by the Mamelukes.

From out the haze of the mirage, or from behind the ridges of sand and the scrub of the water-melon plants that dotted the plain, some 10,000 of these superb horsemen suddenly appeared and rushed at the squares commanded by Desaix and Reynier.

Their richly caparisoned chargers, their waving plumes, their wild battle-cries, and their marvellous skill with carbine and sword, lent picturesqueness and terror to the charge.
Musketry and grapeshot mowed down their front coursers in ghastly swathes; but the living mass swept on, wellnigh overwhelming the fronts of the squares, and then, swerving aside, poured through the deadly funnel between.

Decimated here also by the steady fire of the French files, and by the discharges of the rear face, they fell away exhausted, leaving heaps of dead and dying on the fronts of the squares, and in their very midst a score of their choicest cavaliers, whose bravery and horsemanship had carried them to certain death amidst the bayonets.