The third class in elevation were the formidable Mamelukes who held both Cophts and Arabs in profound subjection. These are, or we may say _were_, a corps of professed soldiers, having no trade excepting war. In this they resemble the Janissaries, the Sterlitzes, the Prætorian bands, or similar military bodies, which, constituting a standing army under a despotic government, are alternately the protectors and the terror of the sovereign who is their nominal commander. But the peculiar feature of the constitution of the Mamelukes, was, that their corps was recruited only by the adoption of foreign slaves, particularly Georgians and Circassians. These were purchased when children by the several Beys or Mameluke leaders, who, twenty-four in number, occupied, each, one of the twenty-four departments into which they had divided Egypt. The youthful slave, purchased with a heedful reference to his strength and personal appearance, was carefully trained to arms in the family of his master. When created a Mameluke, he was received into the troop of the Bey, and rendered capable of succeeding to him at his death; for these chiefs despised the ordinary connexions of blood, and their authority was, upon military principles, transferred at their death to him amongst the band who was accounted the best soldier. They fought always on horseback; and in their peculiar mode of warfare, they might be termed, individually considered, the finest cavalry in the world. Completely armed, and unboundedly confident in their own prowess, they were intrepid, skilful, and formidable in battle; but with their military bravery began and ended the catalogue of their virtues. Their vices were, unpitying cruelty, habitual oppression, and the unlimited exercise of the most gross and disgusting sensuality. Such were the actual lords of Egypt.[374] Yet the right of sovereignty did not rest with the beys, but with the Pacha, or lieutenant,--a great officer despatched from the Porte to represent the Grand Signior in Egypt, where it was his duty to collect the tribute in money and grain, which Constantinople expected from that rich province, with the additional object of squeezing out of the country as much more as he could by any means secure, for the filling of his own coffers. The pacha maintained his authority sometimes by the assistance of Turkish troops, sometimes by exciting the jealousy of one bey against another. Thus this fertile country was subjected to the oppression of twenty-four prætors, who, whether they agreed among themselves, or with the pacha, or declared war against the representative of the Sultan, and against each other, were alike the terror and the scourge of the unhappy Arabs and Cophts, the right of oppressing whom, by every species of exaction, these haughty slaves regarded as their noblest and most undeniable privilege.