Soon after the removal of the mission from the Dardanelles to Constantinople, Captain Lacy and Lieutenant Fletcher, R.E., were detached to join the Turkish army in Syria. With these officers two military artificers were also sent, one of whom returned from Cyprus with the former officer in April, and the other reached the mission again, some two months later, with Captain Lacy. On the 13th of June, the artificers sailed from Constantinople[120] with the mission, and landed at Jaffa on the 2nd of July, where they encamped with the Turkish army and commenced, under the foremanship of sergeant E. Watson, the improvements suggested by Major Holloway in the fortifications of that port. These, however, though far advanced, were ultimately set aside, and the artificers were appointed to erect several new works in front of Jaffa; which, in consequence of the French being in great force at Catieh, were considered to be more essential than the proposed alterations to the defences of the town. With great ceremony, on the 30th of August, the first stone of the intended new bastion was laid by the Grand Vizier; and shortly after, his Highness having reviewed the mission, marked his approbation of their appearance by a present to each non-commissioned officer and soldier. In December the fever, which had been alarmingly rife in the Turkish camp, attacked the mission. Its first victim was a military artificer; and before the end of the month, though the cases of mortality were few, the mission had to lament the loss by death, of their commander, General Koehler, R.A., and his lady. Major Holloway, royal engineers, then assumed the command, and at the close of the year, a change of cantonment having re-established the health of the men, the works at the new bastion progressed vigorously.[121] ----- Footnote 120: Some time before leaving the city, private Thomas Taylor, royal military artificers, was, without any provocation, assaulted by a Turk, who attempted to stab him with his yatikan. On a report of this outrage being made to the Capitan Pacha, to whose retinue the Turk belonged, he came to a resolution to have him decapitated. By the mediation and entreaties of Lord Elgin, a mitigation of the punishment ensued, and the Turk, after receiving fifty strokes of the bastinado on the soles of his feet, was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment in the college of Pera, _to learn the Arabic language_.—Dr. Wittman’s Turkey, p. 93. Footnote 121: Particulars for the most part obtained from Wittman’s ‘Travels in Turkey,’ &c. -----