Colonel Napier was attached to the Turkish division that Ibrahim forced to return to Jerusalem: the following is the Colonel’s account of their movements, as well as of what he knew of Ibrahim’s retreat.
“Junior United Service Club,
December, 1841.
“You wish me to give you some information as to the retreat of Ibrahim Pacha from Damascus. All the notes I took at the time being with my baggage at Gibraltar, I cannot be very accurate in dates; but will furnish whatever I remember on the subject from the time you left me at Beyrout in November 1840, until my embarkation at Gaza for Egypt, in January 1841.
“When the Powerful left St. George’s Bay, I think the Princess Charlotte, the Benbow, and Bellerophon remained off Beyrout, with a steamer and a couple of Austrian vessels.
“From the time of your driving back Ibrahim,—in the action of the 10th of October,—from the heights of Boharsof, nothing certain had been known at Beyrout relative to his movements, and we,—to all appearance,—remained in a state of complete inactivity.
“We continued quietly in our quarters all November, which leisure I employed in learning Arabic, in visiting the neighbouring parts of Lebanon, and keeping up the acquaintance I had been enabled to form,—through your introductions,—with the principal Emirs and Sheikhs of the mountain, with several of whom I became very intimate.
“About the latter end of November, I was sent with Colonel Bridgeman to make a reconnoissance on the enemy, who was supposed to be still at Zachle. On arriving there we found he had retired across the Boccah two days before. Next morning, Colonel Bridgeman and myself, each accompanied by some fifty or sixty irregular horse, pushed on in different directions towards them. The Colonel fell in with a body of 300 or 400 cavalry deserters from the Egyptian army, whom he brought back to Zachle;—whilst I traversed the range of the Anti-Lebanon, and descending into the plain of Damascus reached the village of Zebdeni,—a few hours’ distant from that city,—on which the Egyptians had fallen back; the last of their rear-guard having left that place on the previous day.
“It was now certain that Ibrahim occupied Damascus, but whether or not he intended to make it his winter quarters was still unknown. However, the good people of Beyrout considered his presence even at the holy city of ‘El Sham,’ as much too near to be pleasant; and when the gale of wind of the 2nd of December drove all our vessels from the coast, serious apprehensions were entertained, that some fine morning he would walk quietly into the town;—which undertaking he might have accomplished with little or no opposition.
“Things continued in this state at Beyrout, till the beginning of December, at which period I received written instructions to the following effect from Sir Charles Smith: ‘That I was in the first instance to proceed to the head-quarters of the Emir Bechir with certain communications, and then to go, without loss of time, to Naplouse; that Selim Pacha would have orders notifying my official employment within his pachalic, and requiring him to attend to any requisition I might make (with the exception of troops,) on the garrison of Acre.