volume one

32 HISTOEY OF THE CEUSADES.
entered Bagdad, to prostrate himself at tlie feet of the
caliph, who proclaimed the triumph of his liberators and
theii' sacred claims to the empire. In the midst of an
imposing ceremony, Togrul was successively clothed with
seven robes of honour ; and seven slaves bom in the seven
climates of Arabia were presented to him. Two crowns
were placed upon his head, and, as an emblem of his dominion
over the East and the AVest, thev girded him with two
scimitars. This ceremony rendered the usurpation of the
Turks legitimate in the eves of the Mussulmans. The
empire which the \'icar of ^lahomet pointed out to their
ambition was speedily conquered by their arms. Under the
reign of Alp-Arsland, and that of Malek-Scha, the successors
of Togrul, the seven branches of the dvnasty of Seldjouc
shared amongst them the largest kingdoms of Asia. Thirty
years had scarcely passed away since the Tartars conquered
Persia, and already their military and pastoral colonies extended
from the Oxus to the Euphrates, and from the Indus
to the Hellespont.
One of the lieutenants of !Malek-Scha carried the terror
of his arms to the banks of the Nile, and wrested Syria
from the hands of the Eatunite caliphs. Palestine yielded
to the power of the Tui'ks, and the black flag of the Abassides
floated triumphantly over the walls of Jerusalem. The conquerors
spared neither the Christians nor the children of
Aly, whom the caliph of Bagdad represented to be the
enemies of Grod. The Eg}'ptian garrison was massacred,
and the mosques and the churches were delivered up to
pillage. The holy city was flooded with the blood of Christians
and Mussulmans.
The possession of Jerusalem in no degree arrested the
barbarous fury of the Turks. As their empire was recent
and ill-established, as they were threatened with the armies
of Cairo, and even with those of the AVest, their tyranny
became restless, jealous, and riolent. The Christians trembled
under the hardest and most humiliating subjugation
they were despoiled of their propeiirs', and reduced to the
most frightful deofree of misen\ Thev imderwent much
greater evils than they had suflered during the reign of
Hakim.
A gi'eat number of those who had quitted their families
;