After Nearly
Two Years Fighting, During Which Time A Considerable Part Of The Town
Was Laid In Ruins, The Pasha With The Sherifs Were On The Point Of
Succeeding, And Compelling The Janissaries To Surrender.
The chiefs of
the Janissaries had applied to the European Consuls for their mediation
between them and the Pasha,
The conditions of their surrender were
already drawn up, and in a few days more their power in Aleppo would
probably have been for ever annihilated by a treacherous infraction of
the capitulation, when, by a fortunate mistake, a Tartar, sent from
Constantinople to Mohammed, entered the town, instead of taking his
packet to Sheikh Abou Beker; the Janissaries opened the dispatches, and
found them to contain a Firmahn, by which Mohammed Pasha was recalled
from his Pashalik of Aleppo. This put an end to the war; Mohammed
dismissed the greater part of his troops and retired: the Janissaries
came to a compromise with the Sherifs in the castle, and have since that
time been absolute masters of the city.
I cannot omit mentioning that during the whole of the civil war, the
persons and property of the Franks were rigidly respected. It sometimes
happened that parties of Sherifs and Janissaries skirmishing in the
Bazars, left off firing by common consent, when a Frank was seen
passing, and that the firing from the Minarets ceased, when Franks
passed over their flat roofs from one house to another. The Janissaries
have this virtue in the eyes of the Franks, that they are not in the
smallest degree fanatical; the character of a Sherif is quite the
contrary, and whenever religious disputes happen, they are always
excited and supported by some greenhead.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 840 of 870
Words from 228282 to 228565
of 236498
