, you must understand,
that's the land of genii and crocodiles, where they've built pyramids as
big as our mountains, and buried their kings under them to keep them
fresh--an idea that pleased 'em mightily. So then, after we
disembarked, the Little Corporal said to us: 'My children, the country
you are going to conquer has a lot of gods that you must respect;
because Frenchmen ought to be friends with everybody, and fight the
nations without vexing the inhabitants. Get it into your skulls that you
are not to touch anything at first, for it is all going to be yours
soon. Forward, march!' So far, so good. But all those people of Africa,
to whom Napoleon was foretold under the name of Kebir-Bonaberdis--a word
of their lingo that means 'the sultan fires'--were afraid as the devil
of him. So the Grand Turk, and Asia, and Africa had recourse to magic.
They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, supposed to have descended from
heaven on a white horse, which, like its master, was bullet-proof; and
both of them lived on air, without food to support them. There are some
that say they saw them; but I can't give you any reasons to make you
certain about that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make
their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep them from perishing in
battle; and they pretended he was an angel sent from heaven to fight
Napoleon and get back Solomon's seal. Solomon's seal was part of their
paraphernalia which they vowed our general had stolen. You must
understand that we'd given 'em a good many wry faces, in spite of what
he had said to us.

"Now, tell me how they knew that Napoleon had a pact with God? Was that
natural, d'ye think?

"They held to it in their minds that Napoleon commanded the genii, and
could pass hither and thither in the twinkling of an eye, like a bird.
The fact is, he was everywhere. At last, it came to his carrying off a
queen beautiful as the dawn, for whom he had offered all his treasure,
and diamonds as big as pigeon's eggs--a bargain which the Mameluke to
whom she particularly belonged positively refused, although he had
several others. Such matters when they come to that pass, can't be
settled without a great many battles; and, indeed, there was no scarcity
of battles; there was fighting enough to please everybody. We were in
line at Alexandria, at Gizeh, and before the Pyramids; we marched in the
sun and through the sand, where some, who had the dazzles, saw water
that they cou