Syria—Landing at Caiffa; Mount Carmel—Cave of Elijah; epidemic—Colour-sergeant Black—Inspection at Beirout by the Seraskier; return of the detachment to England—Expedition to the Niger—Model farm—Gori—Fever sets in; return of the expedition—Services of the sappers attached to it—Corporal Edmonds and the elephant—and the Princess—Staff-sergeant’s undress—Staff appointments—Wreck of the ‘Royal George’—Sergeant March—Sapper-divers—Curiosities—Under-water pay; means used to aid the divers—Speaking under water—Gallantry of private Skelton—Alarming accidents—Constitutional unfitness for diving—Boundary survey in the state of Maine—Augmentation to corps for Bermuda—Sandhurst; corporal Carlin’s services—Quartermaster-sergeant Fraser—Intrepidity of private Entwistle—Colonel Pasley—Efficiency of the corps—Its conduct, and impolicy of reducing its establishment—Sir John Jones’s opinion of the sappers—And also the Rev. G. R. Gleig’s.
A portion of the detachment in Syria was removed from Acre to Jaffa on the 11th January. About this time, lance-corporal Hugh Smith[[384]] accompanied Lieutenant Aldrich to Medjel. From the 23rd February to the 12th April, three of the party from Acre assisted Lieutenants Aldrich and Symonds in the survey of Jerusalem and Sidon, halting on the route at Jericho, Nablous, and Safed. Sergeant Black was left in charge of the restorations at Acre; but owing to the plague which had been so fatal to the royal marines, he was soon after removed with the remainder of the detachment to Jaffa, in the defensive occupation of which he and his men were engaged for about six weeks. The party then returned to Beirout, and was occupied in various contingent services; such as repairing the billets provided for the troops by the Ottoman government. Here the three men rejoined from Jerusalem and Sidon. All the party was subjected to much inconvenience from the want of those essentials in barrack furniture which formed no part of the inventory of a Turkish soldier’s accommodation; and, to supply the deficiency, the carpenters of the detachment made some tables, forms, and other indispensable utensils.
On the 23rd April twelve of the sappers sailed in the ‘Phœnix’ for Caiffa, and in disembarking, under rain, the boat was swamped in a heavy surf. The men made the shore as best they could, but lost most of the public stores and their baggage. Before sunset they were tented on the beach, and, in a few days, the encampment was removed under Mount Carmel,[[385]] there to await the cessation of the plague, and afterwards to repair again to Acre to strengthen the defences. It was at first intended to take up a station near the convent on the mount, but that quarter was found to be in quarantine, on account of the plague being at Caiffa, only a few hundred yards off. No resource was left but to seek shelter under canvas, which, in a country subject to endemics, was very inimical to health; and that, combined with the circumstance of the party being detached without a medical officer, might have added one more calamity to the fatal incidents of the campaign. A quarantine cordon was therefore formed around the encampment, and every means adopted to prevent fever, from contiguity or local miasma, appearing in the tents.
The sappers now took their meals in the sacred cave of Elijah—a cool but ill-ventilated retreat. The water at the camp was deleterious to health; but, after the 21st June, mountain spring-water, obtained three miles away, was brought for their use. In a country subject to plague and fever, a European holds his life by a precarious tenure: the detachment felt this, but bore up well, notwithstanding the absence of a medical officer. Dr. Zorab, a Turkish practitioner, made one or two professional visits to the party, and then Mr. Robertson, Deputy Inspector-General, voluntarily joined the camp from Beirout. Three weeks afterwards, he was relieved by Assistant-Surgeon Acton, R.N., who had scarcely commenced his duties when the fever attacked the party. The two men employed outside the cordon were the first seized with the malady, and every man of the party was soon under treatment. In most of the cases the seizure was highly dangerous, and in forty-eight hours the strongest man was completely prostrate. It was not until the shelter of a building for the sufferers could be obtained that the skill of Dr. Acton was of any avail. Four of the men died, and the remainder were conveyed in the ‘Stromboli,’ on the 10th July, to Beirout. Two more were invalided to England, and the other six only regained convalescence after a long period of illness.
Constantly moving along the coast, embarking and disembarking the stores, made the duties of the detachment laborious; and both colour-sergeant William Black[[386]] and second-corporal Henry Brown[[387]] were promoted, in consequence of the efficient manner in which they executed those services, and for their zeal before the enemy. At one time, the engineer park in charge of the former consisted of 100,000 sand-bags with a proportional quantity of field implements and tools, and was never less than 72,000 sand-bags. He also issued commissariat stores to the whole camp.
At Beirout the party was occasionally employed on the works, and furnished a guard for the station, in concert with the royal artillery. On the 1st December, the Seraskier, Selim Pacha, and Colonel Rose, commanding the expedition, inspected the detachment, and expressed themselves in a flattering manner relative to their services in the country. The latter, in orders, added his assurance that he entertained the highest sense of their zeal and efficient services on all occasions; and the Sultan awarded to each a medal in commemoration of the campaign.[[388]] From the inspection parade of the Seraskier, the detachment, reduced from twenty-two to fourteen men, embarked on board the ‘Thunderer,’ and landed at Malta on the 27th December, where they passed two months in the Forts of Manoel and St. Elmo, and landed at Woolwich from the ‘Gorgon’ steamer on the 23rd March, 1842.
On the 20th February, one corporal and seven privates embarked with the expedition under the command of Captain Trotter, R.N., to the Niger. Its object was to explore the source of the river, to introduce civilisation into Africa, and to prevail on the chiefs to extinguish slavery. The sappers were divided into two sections: one was added to the crew of the ‘Albert’ steamer, and the other to the ‘Wilberforce.’ They had been specially taught at Chatham the mode of blasting rock under water, with a view to removing obstructions in the navigation of the streams of the Niger yet unsurveyed. Five were men of excellent character, but three were not irreproachable in point of sobriety. The royal warrant sanctioning the formation of this special detachment is dated 7th December, 1840, and the corps was thereby increased from 1200 to 1208 of all ranks. The party was armed with rifles and bayonet-swords.
Late in June the expedition reached Freetown, and, steaming along the coast, crossed the mouth of the Niger on the 13th August. After passing the Bight of Benin, the steamers anchored off Ibu on the 26th; and the king, Obi, with the heir-apparent, Chikuna, and a vast retinue, visited the ‘Albert.’
On the 2nd September the expedition was off Iddah. To the king, or Attàh of Egarrah, a visit was paid by Captain Trotter. The sappers and seamen formed the guard of honour. Corporal Edmonds commanded, and he and all the men were grotesquely habited and decorated, to suit the barbaric taste of his majesty.
Near the confluence of the rivers Niger and Tchadda were landed the wooden houses to form the model farm on Mount Stirling, purchased from the King of Egarrah for 700,000 cowries. The Kroomen and seamen were the labourers in this service, and the sappers superintended the construction of the farm and the erection of the magnificent tent used in the Eglintoun tournament. The manipulation of the houses was prepared in England, leaving nothing to do but to put the materials together. To do this effectually, some trivial details in wood and iron were made on the spot by the sappers. Private John Craig surveyed the island and accomplished his work with quickness and credit. The duties of the farm were greatly interrupted by the intolerable heat, and numbers seized by the fever were sent away in the ‘Wilberforce’ and the ‘Soudan.’ The whole of the model arrangements were at length concluded, and on the 21st September the ‘Albert’ got under weigh again. The sappers were then healthy.