en in Egypt itself they
are hampered by the difficulties of communication--on land by the
guerilla hostility of the natives, and now on the water through his
own presence and control. The Nile, through its Rosetta mouth, had
been heretofore the easiest communication between Cairo and
Alexandria. The garrison of the latter depended largely for daily
bread upon this route, now closed by the fleet in Aboukir Bay. By
land, nothing short of a regiment could pass over ground where, even
before the battle, the French watering-parties from the ships had to
be protected by heavy armed bodies. He intended, therefore, to remain
where he was as long as possible. "If my letter is not so correct as
might be expected," he concludes, "I trust for your excuse, when I
tell you that my brain is so shook with the wounds in my head, that I
am sensible I am not always so clear as could be wished; but whilst a
ray of reason remains, my heart and my head shall ever be exerted for
the benefit of our King and Country."

It may be added here, that the scar left by this wound seems to have
been the cause of Nelson's hair being trained down upon his forehead,
during the later years of his life. Prior to that it was brushed well
off and up, as may be seen in the portrait by Abbott, painted during
his stay in England, while recovering from the loss of his arm. After
his death, a young officer of the "Victory," who had cut off some
locks for those who wished such a remembrance of their friend, speaks
of "the hair that used to hang over his forehead, near the wound that
he received at the Battle of the Nile."

The perception of his control over the communications from Rosetta to
Alexandria dawned rather late upon Nelson, for on the 5th of August he
had announced his purpose of starting down the Mediterranean on the
19th. This he postponed afterwards to the first part of September, and
again for as long as possible. While in this intention, most secret
and urgent orders came on the 15th from St. Vincent, to return to the
westward with his command, and to co-operate with an expedition
planned against Minorca. Six prizes, with seven of the British
ships-of-the-line, had started on the 14th for Gibraltar, under the
command of Sir James Saumarez. The three remaining prizes were burned,
and hasty temporary repairs, adequate only for a summer voyage, were
put upon the "Vanguard," "Culloden," and "Alexander," the three most
defective ships of his fleet. On t