Of the succeeding Sultans we find nothing remarkable; and the Mamlûk aristocracy began to render their station more and more precarious.
In 1501 Kansû El-ghûri was raised to the throne.
In 1516, Selim II. emperor of Constantinople, having declared war against him, defeated and slew him near Aleppo, and seized Syria.
Tomân Bey was appointed his successor by the Mamlûks. On the 24th January 1517, he lost, at Rodania near Kahira, a great battle against the Othman troops. After another obstinate conflict, Tomân Bey was again defeated by Selim, taken prisoner, and hanged at one of the gates of Kahira on the 13th April.
Selim was contented with abolishing the monarchy of the Mamlûks, but suffered their aristocracy to retain its former power, on certain conditions; the chief of which were, an annual tribute, obedience in matters of faith to the Mufti of Constantinople, and the insertion of the name of the Othman Emperors in the prayers, and on the coin.
Syria, its usual appanage, being withdrawn, Egypt has rarely intermeddled with foreign affairs, and the Beys have generally been contented with squeezing the people, and enjoying in ease the fruit of their extortions. During the pre-eminence of the Othman power, Egypt appears one of the most quiet and submissive of the provinces: and the travellers of this and the two preceding centuries may supply what few materials arise, concerning its history, or rather its condition. The evening of the Turkish domination was marked by the appearance of that meteor, Ali Bey, who had scarcely dazzled the nations with his wild effulgence before he disappeared.
CHAP. VIII.
UPPER EGYPT.