Ensued A
Campaign Against The Mamluks In Upper Egypt, And His Being Present At
The Massacre Of Those Miscreants In The Citadel Of Cairo,—He Confined His
Part In The Affair To Plundering From The Beys A “Saddle Richly Mounted
In Silver Gilt,” And A Slave Girl With Trinkets And Money.
He married the
captive, and was stationed for six months at Matariyah (Heliopolis),
with the force preparing to march upon Meccah, under Tussun Pasha.
Here
he suffered from thieves, and shot by mistake his Bim Bashi or
sergeant, who was engaged in the unwonted and dangerous exercise of
prayer in the dark. The affair was compromised by the amiable young
commander-in-chief, who paid the blood money amounting to some thousand
piastres. On the 6th October, 1811, the army started for Suez, where
eighteen vessels waited to convey them to Yambu’. Mahomet assisted at the
capture of that port, and was fortunate enough to escape alive from the
desperate action of Jadaydah.[FN#3] Rheumatism obliged him
[p.393] to return to Cairo, where he began by divorcing his wife for
great levity of conduct. In the early part of 1814, Mahomet, inspired
by the news of Mohammed Ali Pasha’s success in Al-Hijaz, joined a
reinforcement of Albanians, travelled to Suez, touched at Yambu’ and at
Jeddah, assisted at the siege and capture of Kunfudah, and was present
at its recapture by the Wahhabis. Wounded, sick, harassed by the
Badawin, and disgusted by his commanding officer, he determined to
desert again, adding, as an excuse, “not that the step, on my part at
least, had the character of a complete desertion, since I intended to
join the main body of the army;” and to his mania for desertion we owe
the following particulars concerning the city of Meccah.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 500 of 630
Words from 137085 to 137386
of 175520
