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THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

Ibn Alaliir himself ), 1 one of the stoutest fortifiedplaces in Asia, the queen of beauty, and limpidwaters, the city over sixty towns, was no more.Its altars upset, its riches and songs gone, its un-rivalled magnificence, as if an edifice carried fromheaven to be built on earth . 2 Whatever of theatrocious massacres were subsequently perpetratedby Koureddin, his father Zengui had showed theexample; so that, if the scimitar devoured itspeople as fire devours straw, j’et on Zengui’s head,the man of blood, be the whole! Some weekslater, the man of blood was himself murdered byhis own Mamelouckes, while asleep in hiscamp . 3 The Emperor of Greece had a fewyears earlier come into Syria at the invitation of acadi near Aleppo, who became Christian with fourhundred of his village, and many of the nativeshaving taken refuge in caves in the hills, the Greeksmaking large fires at the mouth smoked out some, andsuffocated others of the unfortunates within. But ithaving been contrived to cause dissensions betweenthe Greeks and Latins, the emperor had to retire . 4

On the whole, Zengui deserved his death, andthe earth was liberated from a monster. News of

1 Arab. Chron., 66.

2 Michaud: Hist., ii. 177, 187. 3 Arab. Chron., 78.

4 Arab. Chron., 67.