is that no roi fainéant was tolerated for long. As soon as he was found out, steps were taken to replace him by a real king.

It must be remembered that the race and qualities and training which went to the making of the splendid Mamluk soldiery went also to the making of a Sultan. He was a Mamluk before he was a Sultan, except in the negligible cases of hereditary succession; and to have won the first place in competition with a corps d'élite is proof of unusual talent. In the corrupt times of the later Circassian Sultans, bribes and intrigues may sometimes have succeeded where better claims failed; but most of the Sultans fought their way to the top by sheer merit. Beybars would have come to the front anywhere. He began with no advantages, for he was bought in Kipchak for the low price of 301., because of the defect of a cataract in the eye, which in the slave market counterbalanced the vigour of his iron frame and the ruddy health of his colour. He passed into the service of an emir who was known as 'the arbalesteer,' whence Beybars was called el-Bundukdari, the name familiar to William of Tripolis. 'Bondogar,' he says, 'as a soldier was not inferior to Julius Cæsar, nor in malignity to Nero,' but he was 'sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects.' He was, indeed, a just and strict ruler, suppressed wine, beer, and hashish throughout his dominions, and kept a tight rein on the morals of his subjects. He was a punctual and indefatigable man of business, and dealt with an enormous correspondence with method and despatch. He was in touch with every part of the wide Empire, and seemed to be ubiquitous; he was sometimes met with in Damascus when his sentries believed him to be asleep in the Citadel of Cairo. He was a skilful diplomatist, and by his alliance with the Golden Horde of his native land of Tartary he put a curb on the Persian Mongols; he made friends with Michael Palaeologus, Manfred, James of Aragon, and the Seljuk Sultan of Anatolia, and crowned his statesmanship by the masterstroke of reviving the old Abbasid Caliphate at Cairo, and so making Egypt the premier state of Islam, and the Azhar the university of the whole Muslim world.

If he was dreaded and distrusted by his officers, who found him suspicious and perfidious-as might be expected in the circumstances of his time and the conditions of his own rise to power-he was the idol of the people, who for centuries loved to listen to his exploits recited in a coffee-house romance. They dearly loved a fighting Sultan, and admired the accomplished sportsman and athlete; for Beybars was as great in the hunting-field or on the polo-ground or at the butts as he was when leading his matchless Mamluks against Bohemond of Antioch or the Knights Hospitallers of Crac. He was a man all over, and if he came to his throne through blood, he left the State founded on rock.

Of a very different character was En-Nasir, whose reign, twice interrupted, was the longest of all the Mamluk Sultans and formed the climax of Egyptian civilisation under Muslim rule. He was no soldier, and came to the throne by inheritance, not through the Mamluk ranks. The unhappy experiences of his youth, when he had twice been driven from the Sultanate by the intrigues of his emirs, had made him at twenty-five a cynic, a double-dealer, and a 'good hater.' He was a statesman, nevertheless; and Egypt was never more respected by the Mediterranean Powers than in his reign. His name was put up in the public prayers at Mekka and even at Tunis; the King of Delhi, no less than the Eastern Emperor and the Pope, sent embassies to Cairo. En-Nasir was a great builder, as his capital witnesses to this day; but he was also a great administrator, and, like Beybars, abolished burdensome taxes, developed agriculture, and rigorously put down wine-bibbing and vice of every kind. His public works, such as the Alexandrian canal, the great causeway by the Nile, and the aqueduct to the Citadel, showed public spirit and foresight, and like his mosques and other foundations cost vast sums.

'This self-possessed, iron-willed man, absolutely despotic, ruling alone, physically insignificant, small of stature, lame of a foot, and with a cataract in the eye, with his plain dress and strict morals, his keen intellect and unwearied energy, his enlightened tastes and interests, his shrewd diplomacy degenerating into fruitless deceit, his unsleeping suspicion

and cruel vengefulness, his superb court, his magnificent buildings, is one of the most remarkable characters of the Middle Ages.'*

No one approached En-Nasir in his magnificent public works and religious foundations except Kaït Bey, one of the latest of the Circassian Sultans, whose exquisite tomb-mosque in the eastern cemetery of Cairo, miscalled the Tombs of the Caliphs,' is among the purest gems of Saracenic architecture. Indeed for most artists the many lovely Circassian mosques form the chief beauty of Cairo. They were built out of the huge profits of the transit dues of the Indian trade, in an age of shameless corruption, when justice and place were openly sold, and the soldiery, mixed with a rabble of Levantines and Mongols, got out of hand, without, however, quite losing their old capacity for collective action at a crisis. Several of the Circassian Sultans, while guilty of barbarous cruelty and abominable treachery, were men of strict and even austere life, keeping the Muslim fasts, drinking no wine, and dressing with studied simplicity. Of one it is recorded that he lived with only one wife, but could not write his own name. Other Sultans were men of literary tastes; some were learned theologians; and of one it is mentioned that he spoke and read Arabic, though it was considered rather bad form' for Mamluk Sultans to know the language of the common people. Bars-Bey, a singularly stern and oppressive ruler, took pleasure in having historical books read to him. Muayyad was a poet, an orator, a musician, and a lover of art. In short, many of these Sultans were accomplished men, and it is evident that they must have possessed political sagacity. Few of them, indeed, were born soldiers; and the martial character of the famous Mamluk cavalry must have degenerated under such leaders, as the end proved. Yet Egypt still kept a bold front to the enemy gradually encroaching from Asia Minor, sent her fleets to Cyprus and to India, and maintained a show of her old solidarity and state. A Venetian ambassador who had audience of the last ruling Mamluk Sultan, Kansuh el-Ghuri, in

*History of Egypt in the Middle Ages,' 2nd ed., 316-317.

་ ་

1503, records his reception at the Citadel. After passing the iron gate at the head of the fifty steps, where some 300 Mamluks in white stood silent and respectful ' like observant Franciscan friars,' the embassy passed through eleven more doors, each with its guards, till, tired out, they had to sit down to rest themselves.'

'They then entered the area or courtyard of the castle, which they judged to be six times the area of St Mark's Square. On either side of this space 6000 Mamluks dressed in white and with green and black caps were drawn up; at the end of the court was a silken tent with a raised platform covered with a carpet, on which was seated Sultan Kansuh el-Ghuri, his undergarment being white surmounted with dark green cloth, and the muslin turban on his head with three points or horns, and by his side was a naked scimitar.' *

Thirteen years later, on Aug. 24, 1516, the brave old Sultan fell fighting against the Ottomans in the disastrous battle near Aleppo. Tuman Bey, who reluctantly took up the sceptre at Cairo, and made a gallant stand, was defeated and hanged at the Zuweyla gate. Selim of Turkey was hailed Sultan in the Friday prayers of the mosque of Cairo in January 1517; and the last of the shadowy caliphs was carried a prisoner to Constantinople.

So ended the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, of which it may at least be recorded that it staved off the flood of barbarism, both east and west, of Mongols and of Crusaders, rescued Egypt from the fate of Persia, and preserved the unbroken continuity of Muslim learning and civilisation, as it was preserved nowhere else, in the city which the Mamluks made beautiful and renowned as the capital of imperial Islam.

STANLEY LANE-POOLE.

* Paton's 'Egyptian Revolution,' quoted in Prof. Margoliouth's interesting sketch of the history of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus,' p. 135.

Art. 13.-A VISIT TO RUSSIA.

IT may not be without value to sum up in a few pages some personal observations made in Petrograd and Moscow in the course of a visit to Russia this winter. Blood is thicker than water; and, as a Russian, I felt intensely the desire to come into direct touch with Russian society, to learn about its needs and aims, to convey tidings from England and, possibly, to help by deed or advice. It would be out of the question to trouble the readers of the 'Quarterly Review' on the present occasion with dry data and statistics, but something may be gleaned from opinions and impressions; and it is in this unassuming spirit that I should like to submit some recollections and thoughts.

I may say at once that what impressed me most was the spectacle of a grand mobilisation of society in the service of the Commonwealth, a mobilisation not decreed nor ordered but spontaneous and organic. The best introduction to what I saw in Russia was provided by what I saw in England. Those who have lived in England during the momentous autumn and winter months of 1914 will never forget the transformation of the country at sight, the all-pervading khaki which spread over the land, the martial aspect of doctors, the dwindling of the Universities in their hibernating state, the tramping and drilling of recruits on all roads and squares. The British were indeed showing that they were in earnest about their voluntary army system, and one did not want to read about the feats of the United States volunteers in the Civil War in order to feel that a great national force has been roused to action.

I saw something of the same kind in Russia; but, if I may say so, the dominating emblem was not the khaki uniform, but the Red Cross. Not that Russia had sent out fewer soldiers, but the millions of armed men had already, to a great extent, been pushed to the front; and the reservists and conscripts on drill did not make the same show in contrast with the rest of the population as in England. On the other hand, everybody was more or less engaged in hospital work or in preparing equipment for the troops.

I am speaking from personal experience about the