Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/331

319 WAR BETWEEN GAZAN AND THE SULTAN OF EGYET. 319 his dominions, and the Franks went back to Cyprus, without having derived any advantage from their pre- parations. What there was favourable to the cause of the Christians in these events, had the effect of bringing the news of them quickly to Europe. " Then it happened," says a contemporary chronicler, " that an innumerable and marvellous host was as- sembled against the Saracens, and the seneschal of all this host was the Christian Kins: of Armenia. And he first led them towards Aleppo, and after that to Camel, and gained the victory, though not without great slaughter and loss of his people. And then, when he had collected his host again, and refreshed them, and recovered his strength, he followed the Saracens towards Damascus, where the Soldan was, with a great host that he had brought there. Then between this King of the Tartars, the Soldan, and the Saracens, there was a wonderful, great, and fierce battle, and more than 100,000 Saracens were slain. The Holy Land was then in the hands of the Tartars, and subject to them ; and the Christians, with great joy and exultation, kept the Feast of Easter to the glory of God in Jerusalem." * The war between Gazan and the Sultan of Egypt was prolonged for several years with various success. The King of Armenia, his faithful vassal, or, as the chroniclers say, seneschal of all his host, came with 40,000 vassals to ravage Syria, and took several towns, and it was in consequence of these events, that the idea of invoking the aid of the Crusaders recurred to Gazan, and that he sent ambassadors to the West to solicit it.
 * Chron. de Saint-Denis, chap. xxv.