A second army under Mustafa Bey advanced toward Mecca and also took possession of Taif. Although the five cities of the Hejaz were now in the hands of the Turks the Wahabi power was not yet broken. Mohammed Ali Pasha himself proceeded from Egypt with another army; he had great difficulty in securing transportation and provisions. Finally he landed his troops at Jiddah and went on to Mecca, planning to attack Taraba the great Wahabi centre of the south, as Deraiyah was the capital of the north. Here the enemy had gathered in great numbers under an Amazon leader, a widow named Ghalye who ruled the Begoum Arabs. She was reported to be a sorceress among the Turks and stories of her skill and courage inspired them with fear. When the attack was made the Wahabis came off victorious and so harassed the army of occupation that during 1813 and the beginning of 1814 they remained perfectly inactive. Later the Turks made a sea attack on Gunfida, the port south of Jiddah, and captured it. The Wahabis however captured the wells that supplied the town, made a sortie and the Turkish troops fled panic-stricken, to their ships. Discontentment arose among the Turkish troops. Supplies failed and wages were in arrears. Mohammed Ali changed now his tactics and tried to bribe the Bedouin chiefs to desert the Wahabi leaders. At this time the Turkish army consisted of nearly 20,000 men and yet the campaign dragged on without a definite victory.[68] The greatest battle was fought at Bissel near Taif where Mohammed Ali defeated the Wahabis with great slaughter. Six dollars were offered for every Wahabi head and before the day ended 5,000 bloody heads were piled up before the Pasha. About 300 prisoners were taken and offered quarter. But on reaching Mecca the cruel commander impaled fifty of them before the gates of the city; twelve suffered a like horrible death at every one of the ten coffee-houses, halting places between Mecca and Jiddah; the remainder were killed at Jiddah and their carcasses left to dogs and vultures. But the battle went against the Turks when they met the desert and its terrors. Hunger, thirst, fevers and the Bedouin robbers attacked the camp. In one day a hundred horses died; the soldiers were dissatisfied and deserted. At length Mohammed Ali made proposals of peace to Abdullah bin Saud the Wahabi chief, and when Saud entered Kasim with an army the negotiations were concluded and peace was declared. But peace was not kept, and Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mohammed Pasha was despatched with a large expedition against the Wahabis in August, 1816. While Egypt was attacking the Wahabi strongholds from the west, with infinite trouble and dubious results, the greatest loss the Wahabi government had yet suffered, was from a blow dealt by the British. In 1809 an English expedition went from Bombay against the piratical inhabitants of their chief castle and harbor, Ras-el-Kheimah. The place was bombarded and laid in ashes.