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70, having come there merely for the purpose of looting and with little stomach for battle. His horsemen could not be called cavalry in any close sense of the word. They were merely marks-men on horseback. Their mode of fighting was to ride up at a gallop, discharge their guns, and then wheel about and retire. Their numbers and the fury of their onset, together with their fine horsemanship, made them dangerous enemies. Ibrahim, assembled his men at Staoueli, in the belief that the most arrant cowardice kept the French in their camps, and that it would be an easy matter for him to make a rush and drive the army, horse and foot, into the Mediterranean. He did not observe the artillery that was rapidly being landed by the French, nor did he see the horses and ammunition wagons to move and supply the guns. He was at first inclined to make an attack when only a small part of the invaders had reached the shore, but finally concluded to let the entire body come to land, so that he would have but a single job of annihilation. For five days the French continued their work of debarkation unmolested by the Algerines except by the desultory attacks of horsemen coming singly or in small groups to try conclusions with the pickets. A few stragglers and foraging parties were cut off, but on the whole the loss to the French during the five days of the landing was trifling. On the 19th General Bourmont was ready for the advance, and gave orders for breaking up the camp and moving in the direction of the enemy. There was great scarcity of water in the camp until the 16th, when a heavy rain flooded the country; after this rain the soldiers found plenty of water everywhere by digging a few feet into the sand. Ibrahim had made his camp on the plain of Staoueli, drawing up his line in the form of a crescent, with his right resting on the valley of the Madiffa, a small river flowing from the Atlas Mountains, which here fill the