chap, ii.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 125

Remounting to the highest antiquity, Jerusalemwas even then the most magnificent of Asiaticcities, and it has never ceased to be a strong one.No other great metropolis was perhaps ever builtfrom the first purposely for strength. The foun-ders, says Tacitus, foreseeing that its difference ofmorals would be sure to make it the source of con-tinual wars, had used every effort to fortify it; andunder the Romans it was the mightiest fortress inAsia. And under the Moslem, who now held it,its circuit measured about three miles, in form anoblong square. The regular troops garrisoning it,were forty thousand; the militia twenty thousand;and the body of Turks and other Mahometans ofevery description that had come to join in thedefence, were at least ten thousand, in all seventythousand men, under the Fatimite lieutenant, anesteemed soldier, and his second in command, anOsmanli of still greater military reputation. Itsgarrison always numerous and brave, had beenvastly increased for the occasion and in everyrespect excellently provided to stand a siege.

The Turks had made it an exception to theirusual spirit of degradation; for finding it to bealways an object of competition and by turns theambition of every conqueror, they had notneglected its fortifications; much less the Egyptians,