were unequal: he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of Belbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks defiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a vigilant eye, and a battle-axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him if he were not afraid of an attack? "It "is doubtless in your power to begin the attack,” replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured that not one of my soldiers will go to "paradise till he has sent an infidel to hell." His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an unusual degree of military art in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the

A.D. 1167.

44

His conduct

flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke 42 exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the "Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honours and rewards "of the sultan, and retire to labour with the peasants, or to spin "with the females of the harem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, after the obstinate defence of Alexandria " by his nephew Saladin, an honourable capitulation and retreat concluded the second enterprise of Shiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious maxim that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. A religious warrior, the great master of the

a

42 Mamluc, plur. Mamalic, is defined by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7) and D'Herbelot (p. 545), servum emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.); and it was only the Bahartie Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt by his descendants.

43 Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem no more than 370 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the superior numbers of the enemy a difference which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.

44 It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans and that of the Turks (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26).

The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p.

111.-M.

The Knights Templars, abhorring the

perfidious breach of treaty, partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused to join in this enterprise. Will, Tyr. c. xx. c. [p. 978]; Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 117.-M.

hospital, encouraged him to proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious Christian, unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency the Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus; the vizir, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to their unanimous wishes; and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were already at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negociation, and their vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. They prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of an hostile country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproach that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance, Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honour, which he soon stained with the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while the Turkish emirs condescended to hold the office of vizir; but this foreign conquest precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless change was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had been degraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the vizirs their subjects blushed when the descendant and successor of the prophet presented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they wept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and terror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of Noureddin, End of the and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abu- caliphs, beker, Omar, and Othman were solemnly restored: the AD1171. caliph Mosthadi, of Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander of the faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchanged for the black colour of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliph Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of his fate: his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions Egypt has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. 45

Fatimite

The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes of the Curds; a people hardy, strong, savage, impatient

45 For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre (1. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12-31; xx. 5-12), Bohadin (in Vit. Saladin. p. 30-39), Abulfeda (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1-12), D'Herbelot (Biblioth. Orient. Adhed, Fathemah, but very incorrect), Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522-525, 532-537), Vertot (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141-163, in 4to.), and M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 185-215).

46 For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. i. p. 416, 417; the Index Geographicus of Schultens; and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308, 309. The Ayoubites descended from

Reign and

Saladin,

A.D. 1171-1193.

of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, character of and manners, seems to identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; 48 and the son of Job or Ayub, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs.49 So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his military character was established by the defence of Alexandria; and if we may believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general the profane honours of knighthood.50 On the death of Shiracouh, the office of grand vizir was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his son in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language," he added in private, "was prudent and "proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we are now above fear "and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall not extort the "tribute of a sugar-cane." His seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title 51 that could

the tribe of the Rawadiæi, one of the noblest; but as they were infected with the heresy of the Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who settled among the Curds.

47 See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians than from the splendid weakness of the Great King.

48 We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat. 1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a Life of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add the article of Salaheddin in the Bibliothèque Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.

49 Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the praise for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.

50 Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A similar example may be found in Joinville (p. 42, édition du Louvre); but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of Christian knighthood (Ducange, Observations, p. 70). 31 In these Arabic titles religionis must always be understood; Noureddin, lumen r.;

52

sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin long content with the possession of Egypt: he despoiled the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir : Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector: his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, which had erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; his humane and generous behaviour to the collateral branches; by their incapacity and his merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In his virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober colour over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter 53 was addicted to wine and women; but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion: the garment of Saladin was a coarse woollen; water was his only drink; and, while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Musulman; he ever deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the Koran, on horseback between the approaching armies, inay be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage." The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were safe in his contempt;

Ezzodin, decus; Amdoddin, columen: our hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled Salahoddin, salus; Al Malichus, Al Nasirus, rex defensor; Abu Modaffir, pater victoriæ. Schultens, Præfat.

Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin, observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals (Excerpt. p. 10).

53 See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537-548.

His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the first chapter of Bohadin (p. 4-30), himself an eye-witness and an honest bigot.

but all profane science was the object of his aversion; and a philosopher who had vented some speculative novelties was seized and strangled by the command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his liberality that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of Acre; and at the time of his death no more than forty-seven drachms of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the treasury; yet, in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the wealthy citizens enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits of their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel ; but his works were consecrated to public use; 55 nor did the sultan indulge himself in a garden or palace of private luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians: the emperor of Germany gloried in his friendship; 56 the Greek emperor solicited his alliance; 57 and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his fame both in the East and West.

His conquest of the kingdom,

A.D. 1187, July 3;

38

During its short existence the kingdom of Jerusalem was supported by the discord of the Turks and Saracens ; and both the Fatimite caliphs and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of their religion to the meaner considerations of private and present advantage. But the powers of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia were now united by an hero whom nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow in the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, the brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by female succession to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and her husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of our English Plantagenets. Their two sons, Baldwin the Third and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but the son of Amaury, Baldwin the

55 In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle of Cairo, the sultan and the patriarch have been confounded by the ignorance of natives and travellers. 56 Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.

57 Bohadin, p. 129, 130.

58 For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre, from the ixth to the xxiid book; Jacob. à Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosolem. 1. i.; and Sanutus, Secreta Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.