32 



CAUSES OF THE WEAKNESS AND DECLINE, &c. 



Note, respecting the Massacre of the Mamelukes {mentioned in page 23.) by the Turks, in 

 the year 1811. Extracted from a Letter written by a Gentleman in Cairo to the Hon. 

 Frederic North, on the very day on which the event happened. 



" Nothing can be imagined more dreadful than the scene of the murder. The Mame- 

 lukes had left the Divan, and were arrived at one of the narrow passages in their way to 

 the gate of the citadel, when a fire from 2000 Albanians was poured in upon them, from 

 the tops of the walls and in all directions. Unprepared for any thing of the sort, and em- 

 barrassed by the want of room, they were capable of scarcely any resistance; a few almost 

 harmless blows were all they attempted, and those who were not killed by the fire, were 

 dragged from their horses, stripped naked ; with a handkerchief bound round their heads, 

 and another round their waists, they were led before the Pasha and his sons, and by them 

 ordered to immediate execution. Even there the suffering was aggravated, and instead 

 of being instantly beheaded, many were not at first wounded mortally; they were shot in 

 different parts of their bodies, with pistols, or stuck with daggers; many struggled to 

 break loose from those who held them ; some succeeded, and were killed in corners of the 

 citadel, or on the top of the Pasha's harem. Others, quite boys of twelve or fourteen 

 years, cried eagerly for mercy, protesting with very obvious truth that they were innocent 

 of any conspiracy, and offering themselves as slaves to the Pasha : all these, and in short 

 every one, however young, and incapable of guilt, or however old, and tried in his fidelity, 

 the most elevated and the most obscure, were hurried before the Pasha, who sternly re- 

 fused them mercy, one by one, impatient until he was assured the destruction was 

 complete. Here, then, is an end of the Mamelukes : and this is the Pasha who piques 

 himself on his clemency. I know nothing in the whole of this miserable scene more dis- 

 tressing than the situation of the wives of the Beys; for to distinguish in every particular 

 this tumult from all others, even the harems have not been respected; and these unfortu- 

 nate women, driven from their apartments which they thought a kind of sanctuary, and 

 stripped of nearly all their clothes, deprived of every refuge, are still wandering, without a 

 protector, without a home, and even without bread. 



" They say, six or seven hundred are already killed, and a proclamation has been cried 

 through the town, enjoining every one to deliver up any Mameluke, who may be con- 

 cealed in his house, under pain of death, and the confiscation of his property." 



