Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/86

70 by his eunuch, whereupon his grandson at once proclaimed himself heir to the throne, raised the siege and hurried back to Fez to establish his kingly rights. The Arab historians say that more than one hundred twenty thousand men perished during the investment of Tlemsen. It is, consequently, not to be wondered at that the inhabitants totally destroyed Mansura as soon as the besieging forces left.

The strange and bloody events enacted around this unusual camp gave birth to innumerable legends concerning this very ground which the French colonists are now tilling. But these men from over the sea pay no heed to these stories and only laugh at the djinns, who fasten so strong a fear upon the natives that they go with the greatest reluctance as laborers to these French farms at Mansura.

Thirty years after the murder of Abu Yakub the Merinides returned. The sultan, Abu'l-Hasen, commenced a new investment of the town, reconstructed Mansura and after some years finally captured the Algerian city. Once the place fell, he abandoned his residence in Mansura for a new and more magnificent palace which he caused to be erected within the town. Then in 1348, when the Tlemsen sultans regained control, they once more ordered the destruction of Mansura, carried off the more valuable building materials and appropriated the art objects to adorn their own palaces. There among the ruins of Mansura it is still easy to find bits of pretty majolica, colored glass from the palace windows and the mosque and even bits of silk and brocade.