SONNET--THE SEA. BY A. L. B. M.D. There's silent grandeur in the boundless waste Of Ocean's bosom when the winds are still, And quiet beauty, like the moonbeam traced In lengthened shadows on some snow-clad hill; There's fiercer grandeur in the chainless sea, When the storm-spirit wakes it from its rest, And the high waves are dashing wild and free, As the white foam they bear upon their breast. The thunder's voice is louder on the sea, The lightning flashes with a wilder glare, And landsmen know not of the dangers, he, Whose home is on the Ocean's wave, must dare; Yet it is pictured in its mighty roar, And in the wrecks which strew the rock-bound shore. For the Southern Literary Messenger. SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY And Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States. No. IV. Egypt was then in an unsettled state, and a few details respecting its situation may be permitted, although not absolutely connected with the present subject. For many years previous to the invasion of the French (1797) Egypt had been nominally governed by a Turkish Pasha; but the power was in reality possessed by a soldiery of a peculiar and formidable character, who under Beys or Chiefs chosen from their own body, ruled the country with absolute sway. These troops were called _Mamelukes_, from the Arabic word signifying _slaves_, their numbers being recruited entirely by the purchase of young men from the regions of the Caucasian chain, who were transferred to Egypt, instructed in the use of arms, and at a proper age enrolled; they fought entirely on horseback, and were considered by Buonaparte as the finest cavalry in the world. No person born in Egypt could be enlisted; and marriage being discouraged, if not prohibited among them, they had no feelings which were likely to interfere with their _esprit de corps_. Each Bey held a particular district of the country in subjection, keeping as many Mamelukes as he could purchase and maintain, paying tribute to the Porte when he could not avoid it, and supplying his expenses by wresting from the miserable inhabitants every thing except the bare means of subsistence. The Pasha had thus little else to do than collect the tribute, which he effected by the aid of Turkish troops, and by fomenting dissensions among the Beys.