FRACAS BETWEEN ENGLISH SAILORS AND EGYPTIAN TROOPS.

Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 65, 13 September 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRACAS BETWEEN ENGLISH SAILORS AND EGYPTIAN TROOPS.

« The passengers and crew of an English steamer which has arrived in the Thames within the last few days wore eye-witnesses whilst at Port Said of an' extraordinary fracas between some English sailors and a | number of Egyptian troops and sailors. The mail steamer had occasion to wait at Port Said for a short time, but had barely come to her moorings when her passengors noticed a boat leave the ride of the British war vessel Alexandra, whioh. was stationed there. The boat contained four sailors and one marine, and appeared to have left the vessel surreptitiously. It had got some distanoe from the Alexandra before the flight was discovered, and immediately signals wore passed to an Egyptian vessel which was Bear them to stop the fugitives. A boat was lowered from the Egyptian vessel, and manned by nine sailors and an officer. When the English sailors saw that they were being followed, they waited until their pursuers oame up to them, when, with extraordinary quickness, they pitohed the whole of the Egyptians into the water, afterwards capsizing their boat. The Egyptians for safety clung to the gunwale of the English boat, but were soon knooked off by tho tars, who pulled for the shore. On approaching the land a force of Egyptian soldiers, to the number of about fifty men, was found to be waiting to stop the sailors. The Englishmen were unarmed, but, nothing daunted, they commenced to " pitch into " the Egyptians right and left, knocking them down like ninopins. Finding that even the _ fifty were unable to withstand tho pugilistic onslaught of tho five, reinforcements were sent for. Some fifty other Egyptians arrived, but many of the new comers were also placed hort de combat before the tars were finally secured. The five fugitives, whose courage and ability were worthy of a better oause, were taken baok to their ship, their clothes being literally torn from their backs, their white straw hats being the only portion of their apparel intact. As the sailors were passing the mail steamer, the passengers, in admiration of their pluok, forgot their breach of duty, and gave them a hearty oheer, a compliment whioh waa paid to the tars by their own oomrades as they approached the Alexandra. — Home News.