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
flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His
conduct 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 honors and
rewards of the sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or
to spin with the females of the harem?" Yet, after all his
efforts in the field, ^43 after the obstinate defence of
Alexandria ^44 by his nephew Saladin, an honorable 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 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 vizier,