CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

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morality. Baldwin the First, who had neverceased from taking a pre-eminent share in all thebattles round him, and in military expeditions ofevery sort, now was to set out on his last. Fromeast of Jordan and the Dead Sea, and traversingthe Arabian Desert and Petrea, he advanced intowhat is indeed the third Arabia, or Arabia Felix,and even penetrated to the Red Sea and the Nile.What time it took up, or if it was in one continuousmarch, being uncertain; but in the spring of 1118,he was in Egypt, and falling suddenly sick, anold wound opened; the Christians wheeled,and bearing him on a litter made of their tent poles,undertook to cross the desert near El Arish, a smalltown situated close to the Mediterranean, havingupon three sides those vast solitudes, a mighty wil-derness, where he felt himself dying and thus ad-dressed the companions of his victories, 1 the six hun-dred knights, who stood in profound grief round him:“ Why are you weeping so? Recollect I am but aman, whom many others can replace; do not permitsorrow to weaken you, like women, but rememberyou have to return to Jerusalem with arms inyour hands, and to be ready to fight for the in-heritance of the Lord Jesus, as we have sworn.

I

Albert Aquensis : Chroii., 81.—B. Poujoulat: vol. ii. 497.