ought their way through their enemies and
escaped over the city-wall with the loss of their horses. Two Mamelukes
had in the meantime succeeded, by great exertions, in giving the alarm
to their comrades in the quarter of the Azhar, who escaped by the
eastern gate called Bab al-Ghoraib. A horrible fate awaited those who
had shut themselves up in the Barkukia. Having begged for quarter and
surrendered, they were immediately stripped nearly naked, and about
fifty were slaughtered on the spot; and about the same number were
dragged away, with every brutal aggravation of their pitiful condition,
to Mehemet Ali. Among them were four beys, one of whom, driven to
madness by Mehemet Ali's mockery, asked for a drink of water; his hands
were untied that he might take the bottle, but he snatched a dagger from
one of the soldiers, rushed at the pasha, and fell covered with wounds.
The wretched captives were then chained and left in the court of the
pasha's house; and on the following morning the heads of their comrades
who had perished the day before were skinned and stuffed with straw
before their eyes. One bey and two others paid their ransom and were
released; the rest, without exception, were tortured and put to death in
the course of the ensuing night. Eighty-three heads (many of them those
of Frenchmen and Albanians) were stuffed and sent to Constantinople,
with a boast that the Mameluke chiefs were utterly destroyed. Thus ended
Mehemet Ali's first massacre of his too confiding enemies.

The beys, after this, appear to have despaired of regaining their
ascendancy; most of them retreated to Upper Egypt, and an attempt at
compromise failed. Al-Alfi offered his submission on the condition of
the cession of the Fayum and other provinces; but this was refused, and
that chief gained two successive victories over the pasha's troops, many
of whom deserted to him.

At length, in consequence of the remonstrances of the English, and a
promise made by al-Alfi of 1500 purses, the Porte consented to reinstate
the twenty-four beys and to place al-Alfi at their head; but this
measure met with the opposition of Mehemet Ali and the determined
resistance of the majority of the Mamelukes, who, rather than have
al-Alfi at their head, preferred their present condition; for the enmity
of al-Bardisi had not subsided, and he commanded the voice of most of
the other beys. In pursuance of the above plan, a squadron under Salih
Pasha, shortly before app