20 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [hook I.

was bitterly rude, rain in torrents, wind, mud, atevery moment the stones yielded, the cords relaxed,the tents fell, and had to be put up again. Notwith-standing such excessive rain, we were without goodwater to drink; the roads were so slippery, that ourmules were continually tumbling on their bellies, andfrom the weather, the highway, which was wide, be-came choked up to a narrow passage. The soldanhad left us with the baggage below, while he had hisengines dragged up the mountain. Each morningand evening we used to clamber up to salute him ;at last his miners got under the walls! So Kau-cab was taken by storm; but very easily, since with-out any opposition; all its survivors having found away out to join the Tyrians, it did not contain ahuman creature . 2 If Kaucab and Margat, or Mar-cab, were the same place, then Saladin must havebeen doubly pleased; but it was not with his army,but a picked corps of his Mamelukes and his guards,that he made this second approach, not unsuccess-ful like the first . 3 Thus he himself, in a letter tohis brother: “Kaucab was the stronghold of theHospitallers and infidelity, the ordinary residence ofthe grand master of the order and its head-quarters,since being expelled from Jerusalem. We waited long

1 Arab. Chron., 234. 2 Id. 232.

3 Id., 232.