Note 315 — MEMOIR (continued 7)

Mohammed Ali Pasha, who was an illiterate coffee-house keeper in Salonica, first came to Egypt at the head of a body of Albanians and co-operated with the English against the French. By his extraordinary vigour and intelligence he became the ruler of Lower Egypt, and succeeded in attaching the Mameluke Beys to his person. But finding that they were beginning to chafe under his firm rule, he invited them, in 1811, to a grand dinner in the Citadel of Cairo. The gates were closed, and suddenly fire was opened upon them from every side. Only one man, Elfy Bey, spurred his horse and jumped over the battlements into the square below (some 80 or 90 feet). His horse was killed and he broke his leg, but managed to crawl to a friend’s house and was saved. This same Elfy Bey, on the death of Abbas Pasha, held the Citadel for his son, El Hamy, against his uncle, Said Pasha, and it was only by the intervention of the English Consul-General, who rode up to the Citadel, that Elfy was induced to acknowledge Said as Viceroy of Egypt.