inaugurated Sultan, under the title of Malek-al-Dhaher, (the conspicuous prince.) When the ceremony was at an end, the hour of prayer had arrived, and the Shaikh-al- İslam, issuing from the citadel, read the khotbah in the great mosque, in the name of the Sultan Al-Dhaher."

The successive steps by which an adventurer from the valleys of the Caucasus mounted from the slave bazaar to the throne, are detailed by another oriental writer in a biographical notice of Sultan Inal, the twelfth of the Bordjites, who attained sovereign power A. D. 1454. "In early youth he had been purchased as a slave by Sultan Barkok, whose son and successor, Sultan Faradj, made him superintendent of his stables; he then became a man-at-arms (Khaskhijat) under one of the emirs, and was in due time advanced to the rank of an emir commanding 100 men. He next attained the grade of emir of the Tabul Khani; and after successively holding the governments of Gaza and Roha, was constituted one of the com. manders of a thousand, or emirs of the highest class. He was shortly afterwards invested with the dignity of dowadar or secretary of state, which he exchanged for that of atabek or generalissimo; till he eventually seized the throne on the deposition of Malek al-Mansur Othman." Of the offices here enumerated, the highest civil rank was that of the dowadar, who held in the divan, as above men. tioned, the place corresponding to that of the Ottoman grand-vizir; the atabek (sometimes called emir-al-kebir or grand-emir, or naib-al-sultanat, lieutenant of the kingdom) was the supreme military functionary; and the other great officers of state, ("from whom," says Pietro Martyr," the Sultan is practically elected, as the

pope is from the college of cardinals,") were the master of the horse, the grand-chamberlain, the high-treasurer, the chiefs of the different classes of emirs, and the cadhi-al-codhat or chief of the law.

All these various ranks and gradations were distinguished from each other, with rigid accuracy, by their costume, and more especially by the form and volume of their turbans, which differed greatly from any of those worn in the present day. The common Mamlukes were clothed in white, and wore extremely heavy and closely folded turbans, of a woollen stuff mixed with goat's hair; those attached immediately to the household of the Sultan were distinguished by having their turbans particoloured, black at the top, and green below, while the head-dress of the Korsans, or stipendiary troops, and of the Mamlukes belonging to the emirs, was crimson. The turbans of the emirs of the second or third grade were of white linen, of ample dimensions, and folded in a conical form high above the head; but those adopted by the Sultan, and the twenty-four Beys or emirs of the Tabul-Khani, were so singular as to require a particular description. They consisted of from sixty to seventy ells of linen, part of which was wrapped round the head in numberless complicated plaits, while the remainder was so twisted as to project in front in the form of horns, the number of which, in the coiffure of personages of the highest rank, amounted to six :-in this case the two longest of these strange appendages, which were more than a cubit in extent, were placed "like the horns of a snail," as Pietro Martyr describes them, between the four others, which were only a span long. The reasons assigned for the use of this ponderous

and inconvenient head-dress, according to the same author, were the comparative ease with which its habitual use enabled them to wear their battle helmet, as well as the grave and dignified demeanour which its bulk and cumbrousness imposed on the wearer, who could scarcely move his head without due circumspection under this preposterous burden. The Sultan was distinguished from the emirs of the first class, only by the long ends of the shawl of his turban, which were drawn through the folds, and floated over his shoulders, inscribed with his style and titles embroidered in gold.

We have been somewhat diffuse in this preliminary sketch of the institutions and ceremonial of the Mamluke regime, as well from their singularity and the paucity of notices existing relative to them at this period, as from the remarkable difference which they present, both in spirit and form, from those of the Ottoman empire, which we are accustomed in Europe to regard as the immutable type of all Asiatic monarchies, and with which they were now on the point of being placed in collision. The danger which impended from the formidable and increasing strength of the Osmanlis, had been early perceived by the sagacity of the rulers of Egypt. Barkok, the first of the Circassian sultans, had been wont to declare, in allusion to the attack with which he was menaced by Timur, that he feared not that Kapchak cripple, but that it was from the side of the sons of Othman that the true peril would come. It was not, however, till 1485, nearly ninety years after the death of Barkok, that the first encounter of the two empires took place. Till the latter part of the reign of Mohammed II. friendly relations had been constantly maintained between the courts of Cairo and Constantinople; and in 1435, a treaty of alliance had even been projected between

Mourad II. and Bourshai, for the purpose of jointly attacking in Persia the Sultan Shah-Rokh, son of their common enemy Timur: but in the last years of the conqueror of Constantinople, the jealousy of the Sultan KaitBey was awakened by the encroachments of the Turks on the petty princes whose dominions intervened between the Syrian and Anatolian frontiers, and who mostly acknowledged the Egyptian monarch as lord paramount; and the dispute thus originated was exasperated, at the death of Mohammed, by the succour and protection afforded in Egypt to the refugee Ottoman prince Djem-Shah, (the Zizim of European writers,) who, vanquished by his brother Bayezid II. in the struggle for the throne, had been welcomed with royal hospitality at Cairo, and supplied with the means of striking a second unsuccessful blow.† From this period, the two monarchies were placed in open opposition, and the boundary became the scene of frequent frays and skirmishes; till the detention at Aleppo of an Indian ambassador on his way to Constantinople, with the occupation by the Beys of Syria of several strongholds on the Turkish side of the Cilician defiles, at length drew from the Porte a formal declaration of war.

Of the minor dynasties whose possessions, as already mentioned, separated from each other the territories directly subject to the sovereigns of Cairo and Constantinople, the two principal were the Ramazan-Oghlu, the chiefs of the Turkman tribes which pastured their flocks in the plains at the foot of Mount Taurus, and were masters of the cities of Tarsus and Adana; and the princes of the family of Zulkadr, another Turkman race which had fixed itself to the north-east of the RamazanOghlu, in the country marked in modern maps as Aladulia, a name corrupted from that of Ala-ed-dowlah, the last of the line who possessed

sovereign power. Over these principalities, the keys respectively of Karamania and Syria, it had been for some time the object cf each of the neighbouring empires to establish their ascendency; and their territories became, consequently, the theatre of war. At the commencement of hostilities, the Ottoman influence was in the ascendant, and Tarsus and Adana were garrisoned by the troops of the pasha of Karamania; but Ala-eddowlah, when on his march to join the Turks, was intercepted and overthrown by the Mamlukes of Syria; and this reverse was instantly followed by the march of the main SyroEgyptian army under Azbek, atabek of Egypt, and Temruz, Bey of Aleppo, who forced the defiles of Sis, and overrun Cilicia with such rapidity, that Adana and Tarsus were surprised and carried by assault before the Turkish commander could move forward to their relief. Ahmed-Pasha Herzek - Oghlu, one of the ablest lieutenants of the Sultan, whose sonin-law he had lately become, was now appointed serasker, or commander-inchief, in Anatolia, and sent with fresh forces to the scene of action; but the provincial troops which he commanded were inadequate to sustain the impetuous shock of the Mamluke cavalry, and in a battle fought near the confines of Karamania, the Turks sustained a total defeat. Herzek Oghlu himself, in a fruitless attempt to rally the fugitives, was unhorsed and taken, and sent as a trophy by the victors, with the horse-tails and banners which had fallen into their hands, to the feet of the Sultan at Cairo.

The captive general was honourably entertained by Kait-Bey, and dismissed, with a gift of a caftan of honour, as the bearer of propositions

of peace to Bayezid, who was exhorted by the Mamluke sovereign not to persist in shedding the blood of the orthodox believers, (the Turks and Mamlukes being alike Soonis,) but rather to co-operate with him in the deliverance of their Moslem brethren in Granada, where the last relics of Mohammedan empire were fast falling before the attacks of Ferdinand the Catholic. But these overtures, which were supported by a letter from the pontiff-caliph Motawakel, were rejected by the pride of the divan; and though hostilities were partially suspended during 1487,* the campaign of the following year was opened with extraordinary preparations on both sides. The timariots, or feudatory troops of Europe and Asia, led by their respective beglerbegs, were assembled under the command of the new serasker, Ali-Pasha, whose army was farther reinforced by 6000 of the élite of the janissaries and a formidable train of field artillery, in which the Mamlukes were entirely deficient; † while a fleet of a hundred galleys, under the command of Herzek-Oghlu, cruised on the coasts of Cilicia, to watch the movements of the enemy. For the encounter of this formidable array, the bravest chiefs of the Syro-Egyptian empire were mustered under the orders of Azbek and Temruz, and the armies met in the wide plains between Adana and Tarsus, August 17, 1488. The battle was contested on both sides with the obstinacy of troops unaccustomed to defeat; but the level character of the ground was favourable to the evolutions of the Egyptian cavalry; and the Anatolian feudatories on the right wing of the Turkish army were at length broken and put to flight by the irresistible onset of Temruz, who had made a

wide circuit beyond the range of artillery, and fallen on their flank at the head of 4000 chosen horse. The European troops and janissaries still gallantly attempted to maintain the conflict; but they were enveloped and assailed on all sides by the victorious squadrons of the enemy, who pressed their retreat with repeated attacks till they reached the shelter of the mountain defiles. Such was the battle of Agadj- Tchair, (the Plain of Trees,) by far the severest reverse which the Ottomans had experienced since the overthrow of the first Bayezid by Timur. Their loss in the action exceeded 20,000 men, including four pashas and several other officers of rank; and their camp, with the whole of their artillery, baggage, and military treasure, became the prize of the conquerors.

The discomfiture of the Turks in the field was followed by the defection of their Turkman auxiliaries, who threw off their vassalage to the Porte, and tendered their voluntary submission to the suzerainté of the Sultan of Egypt a brother of the Prince of Zulkadr, who was commissioned by Bayezid to supersede bis rebellious kinsman in the sovereignty, was defeated and sent prisoner to Cairo; and Karamania was invaded by the united forces of Azbek and Ala-eddowlah, who laid waste the open country, and besieged Kaisanijah, the capital of the province. The Ottoman territory in Asia appeared to be on the point of dismemberment; and Bayezid, roused by the murmurs of the janissaries and the people, who loudly attributed the continued ill fortune of the Turkish arms to the want of the auspicious presence of the Sultan, at length announced his determination to take the field in person for the defence of his dominions. But he was spared the fulfilment of this tardy resolution by the arrival of an embassy from Muley-Zakaria, king of Tunis, who proffered his mediation, as the ally of both parties, to termiminate a quarrel in which the arms of true believers were turned against one

another. By the intercession of the mufti, the good offices of the Tunisian monarch were accepted; and after a protracted negotiation, a peace was concluded at the commencement of 1491, by which the Egyptians were left in possession of their Cilician conquests, though, in order to soothe the Ottoman pride, the revenues of the ceded districts were declared to be appropriated to the support of the pilgrim caravans, and the sacred establishments of Mekka and Medinah. The disasters of the war had demonstrated to the Turks that the Circassian chivalry of Egypt and Syria were far more redoubtable antagonists than any opponents whom they had yet encountered in Asia; and the pride of the Porte was sensibly wounded by the terms of the pacification; yet the treaty remained inviolate during the remainder of the reign of Bayezid, who, immersed alternately in debauchery and ascetic devotion, and harassed by the revolts and dissensions of his sons, had neither leisure nor inclination to engage in foreign wars, from which his genius and tempera. ment were moreover naturally averse. But the phenomenon of an unwarlike Sultan had been hitherto unheard of in the Ottoman annals; and the discontent of the janissaries, who had already more than once manifested their dissatisfaction at the inactivity of their monarch, broke out with redoubled violence at the announcement that he had selected as his successor his second son Ahmed, a prince whose disposition resembled that of his father, and whose recent ill success against the Sheah rebels in Anatolia had given sufficient evidence of his want of military skill. Korkoud, the eldest of the three surviving sons of Bayezid, had likewise incurred the contempt of the troops by his addiction to literature and the fine arts; and it was to Selim, ths youngest of the princes, whose ambition and fierce impatience of control had already twice led him into open revolt against his father, that the eyes and wishes of the janissaries were turned at this conjuncture.

At the news of the popular movement in his favour, he hastened from Kaffa, where he had resided in exile, since his second rebellion, at the court of his father-in-law, the Khan of the Tartars; and no sooner did he appear at Constantinople, than the unanimous voice of the people and the army proclaimed the abdication of Bayezid (April, 1512;) and the dethroned monarch died shortly afterwards, (whether from poison or natural causes appears uncertain,) on his way to Demotica, which had been assigned him as a residence. Such was the first instance of the deposition of a sultan, in which the janissaries, who in subsequent similar revolutions disposed of the empire nearly according to their own pleasure, appear only as instruments of the ambition of a prince of the imperial family; and Selim, whose actions earned for him the wellmerited epithet of Yavooz, or Ferocious, lost no time in securing the throne thus acquired through parricide, by the destruction of all the collateral branches. Korkoud was cut off by stratagem; Ahmed, who attempted to defend himself, was overpowered and put to death; all the nephews of the sultan, with the exception of a single youth who escaped into Egypt, shared the same fate, leaving Selim and his only son (afterwards illustrious as Soliman the Magnificent) the sole existing male descendants of Othman within the circuit of the empire;-" and thus" (says the Turkish historian Solak-Zadah) "were the fundamental laws of the august Ottoman line (which may God strengthen and preserve!) duly enforced and executed, as is necessary for the maintenance of tranquillity and the security of the established order of succession."

The accession of a monarch of this

character inevitably implied the abandonment of the pacific policy pursued by Bayezid; and the changes which had taken place in the ever-fluctuating political aspect of Asia since the peace of 1491, presented a fresh and wide field for conquest and aggrandizement. During the century which had elapsed since the transient conquest of Persia by Timur, that country had been the prey of the marauding Turkman hordes, whose chieftains of various races contested in endless wars the possession of a city or a province :-a prince named Uzun- Hassan, of the Turkman family of Ak-Koinlu, or the white sheep, had indeed succeeded about 1470 in consolidating under his sway great part of the kingdom, but his power was shaken by a defeat which he sustained from Mohammed II., and, at his death, the old scene of anarchy was revived by the disputes of his descendants, none of whom inherited either his valour or his abilities. But, towards the close of the 15th century, the nationality of Persia was suddenly revived in full vigour by the impulse communicated to it by Shah-Ismail-Soofi, a young and gallant adventurer, whose ancestors (real or pretended descendants from the caliph Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet) had for several generations resided in the odour of sanctity at Ardebil, and who now started forth in the double character of the restorer of the Persian monarchy, and the apostle and defender of the Sheah doctrines in religion. His efforts were seconded by the popular enthusiasm in his favour, which rose to such a height, that the epithet of Kizil-bashler,* or Red-heads, originally applied as a sobriquet to his soldiers, from the red caps which they wore, was adopted as a proud and national designation by the Persians-his conquests and his tenets rapidly spread from province to