Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/60

44 lost by this, as the Moorish army that escaped from the engagement, worn out with fatigue, thirst, and hunger, would only retire a short day's march to the water, where, finding themselves not pursued, and incumbered with the number of their wounded, they would necessarily rest themselves; and this was precisely the situation, in which his huntsmen first found them by the side of a large pool of water.

king gave the command of this part of his army to the master of the horse, with orders to pursue them one day farther; whilst he, having taken a short refreshment, began to attack the right wing of the Arabians shut up in the valley. The king, dismounting, led the attack against the front of the Arabians, who, seeing their situation now desperate, began to make every effort to get from the valley into the plain. But they did not know yet upon what disadvantageous ground they were engaged, till the soldiers from the rocks above, every way surrounding them, rolled down immense stones which passed through them in all directions. Pressed, therefore, violently, by the king in their front, and, in the rear destroyed by an enemy they neither could see nor resist, they fell immediately into confusion, and were, to a man, slaughtered upon the spot; upon which the king, giving to his troops orders for a general plunder, retired himself to his camp, and in his tent received from the master of the horse an account of his expedition.

officer had proceeded slowly, spreading his troops as wide as possible upon the tract of the retreating enemy, to give a smaller chance for any to escape. All directed their flight towards the pool of water, and were there destroyed without mercy, till a little after sun-set. The pursuers had then