CHAP. 1.]

ST. JOHN OP JERUSALEM.

71

and in clothes different from what he was accus-tomed to see, began crying; on this the soldanbegged the ambassadors to excuse him, and put offtheir business to the next day . 1

But in addition to what was said already, it isproper to take a further review of Acre; for itmust now be for a period what Malta has sincebeen, the sovereign dominion and chief residence ofthe order; though a fief of Jerusalem, as thatother of Sicily; and therefore called for the futurenot simply Acre, but St. John’s Acre, St. JeancVAcre. At the foot of Carmel, its shelter to thesouth, and Thabor within sight—seated on the sea,commanding the whole line of coast from Egypt toAsia Minor—not far from the celestial Nile, norfrom the king of rivers, Euphrates; emporium notonly of Palestine and Syria, but also whatAlexandria had been before it, and was to be afterit, chief transit between the Oriental countries andEurope, whether via Pisa, or Genoa, or Naples, orVenice, termination of the tongue of that beautifuland renowned plain that runs northward all alongthe shores between it and Libanus, and leaving thecedars, crosses to Mount Taurus, and returning toCaiphas stretches east to where our Saviour passed

1 Arab. Chron., 365.