The savants watched as the Arabs began setting small fires all along the coast, burning the debris of the vessels as it washed ashore. The Arabs were not busy making funeral pyres for the French dead. They were burning the wrecked wood to salvage nails. Egyptian peasants had little access to metal, let alone nails. Most of the raw and refined materials taken for granted in France were scanty in Egypt. As the scholars surveyed the ghastly beach scene, and tiny fires burned the last scraps of their lifeline to home, they understood that there was little difference now between them and the native
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