72 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OE [book II.

his boyhood, and where He pronounced His divinestdiscourse, and to the lake whose waters He trod,and Jordan and stern Judea’s hills:—with so granda situation, whether considered materially, relativeto commerce and landscape, or morally from itshistoric and sacred recollections, Acre could notwell but be one of the richest, most populous, andmost agreeable cities of the whole world . 1 Andthough it had more than once been partially razed,it had always been rebuilt with increasing mag-nificence. If the Moslems had been its masters twice,yet they had not been long so either time, andtreated it on both occasions with unusual respect;and the Franks being always lords of the sea, Acrewas on the skirts of Europe, and enjoyed completesecurity in that direction. And if it was con-tinually menaced, yet what foe approached closeenough to injure its suburban districts? Thatcould be only in a regular siege; rare misfortune,to which all cities are liable, and six years hadscarcely elapsed since its taking in the third crusade,when its houses had been greatly embellished, andmany of them re-erected, for which the not distanthills yielded a white stone nearly equal to the finestmarble. Nor had those huge armies been unattended

1 Michaud: Hist, des Crois., v. 119.—Corneri Chron.—Bib.Crois., iii. 135.