CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

213

earnest of what was coming, and to make due pre-parations, in a vast horse-shoe line, from the sea,at the foot of Mount Carmel, to that on the shore,towards where Tyre lately stood, curving east alongthe crests of Thabor and Lebanon; that from oneextremity to the other, round by the curve line,was a day’s journey . 1

The real siege was to be on the arrival of thesultan in person . 2 Sappers and miners mighthave begun their burrowing, but little more, andengineers and hatchets begun to hew down the cedarsof Lebanon, or in the mountains about Galilee, andthe oaks of Naplouse , 3 and erect their batteringmachines; while men and horses refreshed aftertheir march from the Nile, and their cuirasses gotburnished, and their arms, that they should glitterwell when his Highness arrived, and their chargersbe fat and sleek, and restored to all their fiercenessand mettle by proper repose and good grooming,food and exercise. So that the multitude of noisesand human cries, and the neighing of horses, re-sounded the whole day through that vast enclosure;and by night the tents in the moonlight, and thechallenges of sentinels, inspired a beholder or

1 Ebendorfer.—Bib. Crois., iii: 200.

3 Michaud: Hist., v. 127. 3 Michaud: Hist., v. 128.