governed. The Turks were by nature nothing
better than horsemen; infantry they could not be; an infantry their
Sultans hardly attempted to form out of them; but since infantry was
indispensable in European warfare, they availed themselves of passages
in their own earlier history, and provided themselves with a perpetual
supply of foot soldiers from without. Of this procedure they were not,
strictly speaking, the originators; they took the idea of it from the
Saracens. You may recollect that, when their ancestors were defeated by
the latter people in Sogdiana, instead of returning to their deserts,
they suffered themselves to be diffused and widely located through the
great empire of the Caliphs. Whether as slaves, or as captives, or as
mercenaries, they were taken into favour by the dominant nation, and
employed as soldiers or civilians. They were chosen as boys or youths
for their handsome appearance, turned into Mahometans, and educated for
the army or other purposes. And thus the strength of the empire which
they served was always kept fresh and vigorous, by the continual
infusion into it of new blood to perform its functions; a skilful
policy, if the servants could be hindered from becoming masters.

Masters in time they did become, and then they adopted a similar system
themselves; we find traces of it even in the history of the Gaznevide
dynasty. In the reign of the son of the great Mahmood, we read of an
insurrection of the slaves; who, conspiring with one of his nobles,
seized his best horses, and rode off to his enemies. "By slaves," says
Dow, in translating this history, "are meant the captives and young
children, bought by kings, and educated for the offices of state. They
were often adopted by the Emperors, and very frequently succeeded to the
Empire. A whole dynasty of these possessed afterwards the throne in
Hindostan."

The same system appears in Egypt, about or soon after the time of the
celebrated Saladin. Zingis, in his dreadful expedition from Khorasan to
Syria and Russia, had collected an innumerable multitude of youthful
captives, who glutted, as we may say, the markets of Asia. This gave the
conquerors of Egypt an opportunity of forming a mercenary or foreign
force for their defence, on a more definite idea than seems hitherto to
have been acted upon. Saladin was a Curd, and, as such, a neighbour of
the Caucasus; hence the Caucasian tribes became for many centuries the
store-houses of Egyptian mer