I MEGERLE phia. (See MYLODON for comparative measure- ment and other interesting points.) MEGERLE, ilrkh von. See ABRAHAM i SANCTA CLARA. MEHADIA (anc. Thermo?, Herculis), a small town of Hungary, in the Banat, 6 m. W. of the Roumanian frontier, and 12 m. N. of Orsova; pop. about 1,800. It is finely situated, and has been celebrated as a watering place since the times of the Romans. The springs are sulphu- rous, and are very beneficial in gout and other diseases. There is accommodation for 1,000 visitors. The season begins in June. MEHEMET ALI, or Mohammed All, pasha of Egypt, born at Kavala, Macedonia, in 1769, died in Cairo, Aug. 2, 1849. He lost his father at an early age, and was brought up by the governor of the town. Soon after reaching manhood he was made a collector of taxes, and ~buluk bashi, or commander of a body of infan- try, and received a rich relation of the governor in marriage. He next became a tobacco mer- chant, and had acquired considerable prop- erty when in 1799 he was sent to Egypt as second in command of the contingent of 300 men furnished by his native place to the Tur- kish army, despatched to carry on the war against the French expedition commanded by Bonaparte. Soon after his arrival he succeed- ed to the principal command of his corps, with the rank of ~bim lasJii or commander of 1,000 men. His ability attracted the notice of the pasha and of the soldiers, and he soon became one of the most distinguished and popular mil- itary chiefs in Egypt. After the expulsion of the French a civil war broke out between the Turks and the Mamelukes, in which Mehe- met Ali took an active part. The Albanians in the service of the pasha revolted because they could not get their pay, and after several conflicts in Cairo they became masters of the city, under the direction of Mehemet Ali. A long and confused struggle now ensued be- tween various factions, the result of which was that in May, 1805, Mehemet Ali was invest- ed with the supreme authority by the prin- cipal inhabitants of Cairo, as the only man ca- pable of restoring order ; and shortly afterward his elevation was confirmed and made legal by a firman from the sultan. But although he possessed the title of pasha of Egypt, his au- thority did not actually extend beyond the walls of Cairo, as everywhere in the country the Mameluke beys were still in rebellion. Some time afterward a considerable body of the beys, who with their followers had encamped not far from Cairo, were enticed into making an attempt to seize upon the city. They forced an entrance by a gate purposely left undefended, and marched triumphantly through the streets until they were suddenly surrounded by the troops of the pasha, who slaughtered them without mercy, a few only breaking through and escaping. The rest of the Mamelukes fled to Upper Egypt, whither Mehemet Ali pur- sued them with a considerable force. He had MEHEMET ALI 361 defeated them near Sioot when the arrival of a British expedition at Alexandria, March 17, 1807, consisting of 5,000 men under Gen. Eraser, led him to conclude a truce with the beys, and to promise to comply with all their demands if they would cooperate against the invaders. Most of them agreed to his proposals, and were marching against the British, when Gen. Fraser, who had been already several times defeated by the pasha's troops and had lost about 1,000 men, retreated and left the country, Sept. 14. Many of the beys now took up their abode in Cairo, and for three or four years Egypt was comparatively tranquil, notwithstanding occa- sional battles between the Mamelukes and the pasha's troops, in one of which the latter was signally beaten. At length, on March 1, 1811, Mehemet Ali enticed all the Mamelukes in Cairo into the citadel on pretence of witness- ing the ceremony of investing his son Tusun with the command of an army to be sent against the Wahabees in Arabia. The gates of the fortress were then closed upon them, and they were killed to the number of 470. Im- mediately afterward the pasha's officers and soldiers throughout Egypt massacred all the Mamelukes within their reach. The few who escaped fled to Nubia, where they dwindled away till the corps became extinct. These energetic proceedings established the power of Mehemet Ali, and gave to Egypt an internal tranquillity unknown for ages, and which has lasted to the present time. Tusun Pasha was now sent with 8,000 men against the Waha- bees, from whom he recaptured the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, and whose leader he took prisoner. He subsequently met with dis- asters, and in 1813 Mehemet himself went to Arabia to conduct the war. He was success- ful, and in 1815 returned to Egypt after con- cluding a treaty with the Wahabee chiefs. He now made an attempt to introduce European discipline into his army ; but a formidable mu- tiny breaking out in consequence, he tempora- rily abandoned his design. The "Wahabees not having fulfilled the conditions of the late treaty, he sent his son Ibrahim against them in 1816, with an army composed in part of the recent mutineers. The expedition succeeded in capturing El-Derayeh, the Wahabee capital (1818), and in suppressing all armed opposition in Arabia to the sultan's power. Mehemet Ali now turned his attention to the improvement of manufactures in Egypt, and to the revival of the commerce of the country. He also caused the construction, at an enormous sacri- fice of the laborers from sickness and want, of a great canal from Alexandria to the Nile. In 1820 his youngest son Ismail was sent with an army to conquer Sennaar, and to collect captives to be sent to Cairo with the view of forming them into an army in the Euro- pean manner. Sennaar, Dongola, and Kor- dofan were subdued: and although in 1822 Ismail was surprised and with his retinue burned alive by a native chieftain, these prov-
