276 HISTORY OF THE WAHABEES. 



rison, well supplied Avith ]5rovisions for a long sieg-e; 

 but the chief and his soldiers were so elated with 

 their former success, and so confident in the strength 

 of their fortress, that they seemed to have abandoned 

 themselves to a state of the most culpable inactivity. 

 Ahmed Aga, an officer of acknowledged bravery, 

 but whose idle boasting had procured him the sur- 

 name of Bonaparte, entered the suburbs with little 

 resistance, and drove the enemy into the inner town. 

 As the Turks had nothing but light field-pieces to 

 batter the wall, the siege was protracted to fourteen 

 or fifteen days. At length a mine was laid, and 

 while the inhabitants were engaged in their mid-day 

 prayers part of the fortifications was blown up, and 

 the Arnaouts marched into the city. The Wahabees 

 fled in surprise towards the castle : above 1000 of 

 them were butchered in the streets, and about 1500 

 sought refuge in the citadel, which, from its situation, 

 might have set the Egyptian artillery at defiance. 

 The place was instantly plundered ; and after stand- 

 ing out for three weeks, the garrison, finding their 

 provisions exhausted, were forced to capitulate, — 

 Ahmed Bonaparte having promised to grant them a 

 safe conduct, and provide camels for carrying the 

 baggage of such as wished to return to Nejed. These 

 stipulations, however, were shamefully violated. 

 Only fifty camels instead of 300 were procured, 

 which obliged the emigrants to leave behind them 

 the greater part of their eifects ; and no sooner had 

 they quitted the precincts of the town, than the 

 Turkish soldiers pursued, stopped, and slaughtered 

 as many of them as they could overtake. In the 

 true style of Tartar barbarity, Ahmed collected the 

 sculls of all the AVahabees killed at Medina, and 

 constructed tliem into a kind of towe.r on the high 

 road to Yembo. 



Among the soldiers in the pasha's army who 

 signalized their bravery at the siege of Medina was 

 a young Scotchman, about twenty years of age, a 



