Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/360

 338 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Second expedition to Egjrpt. A.D. U67] [Battle of al Babain] [Amalrlc reigned, A.D. 1162-73] [Third expedition to EsiT)!. A.D. 1168-9] assured that not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidel to hell." His report of the i-iches of the land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design ; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs. ^"^ Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens ; and I can discern an unusual degree of military art in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and counter-marches in the flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke ^* exclaimed, " If we cannot wTest Egypt from the Christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honours and rewards of the sultan, and retire to labour with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the harem ? " Yet after all his efforts in the field,^^ after the obstinate defence of Alexandria ^^ by his nephew Saladin, an honourable capitulation and retreat concluded the second enter- prise of Shiracouh ; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of Amalric, or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious maxim that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God.^'^^ A religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to proceed ; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a fleet to act with the armies of Syria ; and the perfidious Christian, unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency the Mosleins turned their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus ; the vizir, whom danger encompassed on '*''* [So William of Tj're ; but Ibn al Athir gives the total number as 2000. j '^^ M amine [mamluk], plur. Mamalic [mamalik], is defined by Pocock (Pro- legom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7), and d'Herbelot (p. 545), servum emptitium, seu qui pretio numerate in domini possessionem cedit. They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin (Bohadin, p. 236, &c. ) ; and it was only the Bahartie [Bahri ; that is, of the river ; they are opposed to the Burji {of the fort) Mamluks who succeeded them] Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt by his descendants [namely by the Sultan Al-Salih (1240-1249), who organized Turkish slaves as a bodyguard]. •*•' Jacobus a Vitriaco (p. 11 16) gives the king of Jerusalem no more than 374 leg. 370] knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the superior numbers of the enemy ; a difference which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians. 5" It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that of the Turks (Savary, Lettres sur I'Egypte, torn. i. p. 25, 26). 50a [Ace. to William of Tyre, Amalric was personally unwilling to undertake the invasion.]