d Zufeyta. They next seized his boats conveying soldiers,
servants, and his ammunition and baggage; and, following him, they
demanded wherefore he brought with him so numerous a body of men, in
opposition to usage and to their previous warning. Finding they would
not allow his troops to advance, forbidden himself to retreat with them
to Alexandria, and being surrounded by the enemy, he would have hazarded
a battle, but his men refused to fight. He therefore went to the camp of
the beys, and his army was compelled to retire to Syria. In the hands of
the beys Ali Pasha again attempted treachery. A horseman was seen to
leave his tent one night at full gallop; he was the bearer of a letter
to Osman Bey Hasan, the governor of Kine. This offered a fair pretext to
the Mamelukes to rid themselves of a man proved to be a perfidious
tyrant. He was sent under a guard of forty-five men towards the Syrian
frontier; and about a week after, news was received that in a skirmish
with some of his own soldiers he had fallen mortally wounded.

The death of Ali Pasha produced only temporary tranquillity; in a few
days (February 12, 1804) the return of Mahommed Bey al-Alfi (called the
Great) from England was the signal for fresh disturbances, which, by
splitting the Mamelukes into two parties, accelerated their final
overthrow. An ancient jealousy existed between al-Alfi and the other
most powerful bey, al-Bardisi. The latter was now supreme among the
Mamelukes, and this fact considerably heightened their old enmity. While
the guns of the citadel, those at Old Cairo, and even those of the
palace of al-Bardisi, were thrice fired in honour of al-Alfi,
preparations were immediately begun to oppose him. His partisans were
collected opposite Cairo, and al-Alfi the Less held Giza; but treachery
was among them; Husain Bey (a relative of al-Alfi) was assassinated by
emissaries of al-Bardisi, and Mehemet Ali, with his Albanians, gained
possession of Giza, which was, as usual, given over to the troops to
pillage. In the meanwhile al-Alfi the Great embarked at Rosetta, and not
apprehending opposition, was on his way to Cairo, when a little south of
the town of Manuf he encountered a party of Albanians, and with
difficulty made his escape. He gained the eastern branch of the Nile,
but the river had become dangerous, and he fled to the desert. There he
had several hairbreadth escapes, and at last secreted himself among a
tribe of Arabs at Ras al-Wadi. A c