volume one

474 HISTORY OP THE CRUSADES.
present at this first conquest. This generous consideration
proved fatal to the enterprises of the Christians, and gave
time to the Saracens to receive reinforcements.
Saladin had passed the winter on the mountain of
Karouba, and fatigue, frequent combats, "want, and disease
had greatly reduced his army. He himself likewise was
weakened by a complaint which the physicians could not
cure, and which, on many occasions, prevented him from
accompanving his warriors to the field of battle. When he
heard of the arrival of the two powerful Christian monarchs,
he once more, by his ambassadors, called upon the Mussulman
nations for assistance. In aU the mosques prayers were
put up for the triumph of his arms and the deHverance of
Islamism ; and in every Mussulman city the Imauns exhorted
the true believers to hasten to the war.
" Numberless legions of Christians," said they, " are come
from countries situated beyond Constantinople, to bear away
from us conquests that gave such joy to the Koran, and to
dispute with us a laud upon which the companions of Omar
planted the standard of the Prophet. Spare neither your
lives nor your treasures to oppose them. Your marches
against the infidels, your perils, your wounds, all, even to
the passage of the torrent, is written in the book of God.
Thirst, hunger, fatigue, death itself will become for you
treasures in heaven, and will open to you the gardens and
delicious bowers of Paradise. In whatever place you may
be, death must overtake vou; neither vour mansions nor
your lofty towers can defend you against his darts. Some
among you have said, Let us not go to seek for battles dui'ing
the heats of summer, or the rigours of winter ;
but heU will
be more terrible than the rigours of winter or the heats of
summer. Go, then, and bravely fight your enemies in a war
undertaken for religion. Victory or Paradise awaits you
fear God more than the infidels ; it is Saladin who calls vou
to his baiuiers ; and Saladin is the friend ol the Prophet, as
the Prophet is the friend of God. If you do not obey,
your families will be driven from S\Tia, and God will plant
in your places other nations better than you. J erusalem,
the sister of Medina and ISIecca, "^-ill fiiU again into the
power of idolaters, who give a so]i, a companion, an equal to
the Most High, and wish to extinguish the knowledge of
;