Baumgarten, an early traveller in the East, gives the following account of Mameluke exercises performed in presence of the Sultan, who sat in a balcony of the palace overlooking the field: “On the side of the castle, there was a large and plain field, which had been before prepared for this purpose; about the middle of which, on one side, there were three artificial hillocks of sand, about fifty paces distant from one another; and on the top of each of them there was fixed a spear, bearing the mark which the archers were to shoot at; and the like was on the other side; so that in the middle betwixt them there was as much room left as might serve for six horses to run abreast. In this plain a great number of young men clad in richly-embroidered silk, with their usual light arms, mounted their sprightly horses, and began their games in this manner:— First: They ran at full career betwixt the first two of these hillocks, and dextrously shot their arrows at the marks that were fixed to the tops of the spears, both on the right and left hand. Next they rode in the same manner out between the other two, and filled the marks with their arrows. Just so with the same speed they ran through the rest, and shot their arrows so artfully, that not one of them missed his aim. After these young men had performed their parts, and had left none of the marks untouched, every one took his little spear that hung behind his back (as if they minded to act, not at a distance, but hand to hand), and retired a little out of the way, till the rest of the youth had performed as they had done. After which all of them, in the same order as they began, marched through the same way they had ridden, but now at a slow pace, with their standards before them, as in triumph, till they came to the place from which they had set out, and after they had prepared themselves for another kind of exercise, came out again in a little time. Some of them, while their horses were running with loose reins, rode up and down, shooting their arrows at the marks before and behind, some one, others two, and some three. [Illustration: EQUESTRIAN EXPLOITS OF THE CIRCASSIANS.]