who had vouchsafed that Jerusalem should thus be cleansed of Infidel and Jew!

Richard of England, therefore, was but copying the most approved models of knightly grace when, after the fall of Acre, he revenged himself for some breach of faith, real or supposed, on the part of Saladin, by executing 2500 Turkish captives outside the town, while his royal brother of Burgundy put a period to the earthly troubles of an equal number within the walls. Says Geoffrey de Vinsauf in his "Itinerary of Richard I." :—

"He (that is Richard) called together a council of the chiefs of the people, by whom it was resolved that the hostages should all be hanged-[This is a mistake; their heads were cut off]except a few nobles of a higher class, who might ransom themselves or be exchanged for some Christian captives. King Richard, aspiring to destroy the Turks root and branch and to punish their wanton arrogance, as well as to abolish the law of Mahomet and to vindicate the Christian religion, on the Friday after the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ordered 2700 of the hostages to be led forth from the city and hanged. His soldiers marched forward with delight to fulfil his commands, and to retaliate, with the assent of the Divine Grace, by taking revenge upon those who had destroyed so many of the Christians with missiles from bows and arbalests."

James, in his "Life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion," adds that the horrid scene closed with an extended search for valuables inside the bodies of the murdered Saracens, and the careful preservation of parts of them for "medicinal uses."

When, as a lad, I inspected the original Bayeux tapestry at Bayeux, and came to understand the ideas of ornament and pictorial jest which suggested themselves to the minds of the very noblest ladies of that time, those for whose pure sakes knights endured so many discomforts and broke so many heads, my conception of the chivalry of the period, as portrayed in our popular romances, was rudely shaken. A careful study of the inner history of

the Crusades does not tend to build it up again. Yet heroic things did happen in those days. Here is another story of Acre.

Full a hundred years have gone by: Richard and his army are dust like those poor captives whom he butchered, but perhaps some of their grandsons, or greatgrandsons, once more fight on the walls of Acre for the last time, since the triumph of the Crescent is at hand. Leaders were traitorous, the Moslems swarmed in thousands, and inch by inch, through streets that were a shambles, the town was taken. There was a nunnery in it, where dwelt the Virgins of St. Clare. St. Antonine and the chronicler Wadin, in his Annales Minorum, tell the story of their end. I am sorry that I cannot quote Wadin's account in full, as some modern tastes might find it outspoken. Here, however, is a summary.

When the Abbess, who must have been a brave woman, knew that the enemy had entered the city, she caused the bell of the convent to be rung. The sisters having assembled, she told them what they must expect in very straightforward language.

"My dear daughters, my excellent sisters," said she, we must, in this certain danger of life and modesty, show ourselves above our sex. . . . In this crisis we cannot hope to escape their fury by flight, but we can by a resolution, painful, it is true, but sure." She then went on to point out that the sight of mutilated faces is revolting to humanity and to suggest such mutilation. Probably it was not fear but conscience which prevented her from advising a more thorough though, under the circumstances, easier and perfectly legitimate alternativethat of suicide. The Abbess ended, "I will set you the example. Let those who desire to meet their heavenly Spouse imitate their mistress." At these words she cut off her nose with a razor. The others did the same and boldly disfigured themselves to present themselves the more beautiful before Jesus Christ."

The end of the story is simple: "For the Saracens on beholding their bleeding faces. . . killed them all without sparing one." Thus these forgotten heroic women achieved their martyrdom. What a spectacle must they have presented as thus disfigured, their white robes stained with their own blood, they sat, each in her accustomed place within the chapel, telling their beads and mumbling prayers with mutilated lips, while the devilish Saracens burst in upon them.

And it happened. This is no fiction of the romancer. A few brief generations since thus did those noble women suffer, die, and pass to their own place.

The true blood and the false showed themselves on that day of fear. Says the French historian, Michaud : "John de Gresly and Oste de Granson . . fled away

at the very commencement of the battle. Many others who had taken the oath to die, at the aspect of this general destruction only thought of saving their lives, and threw away their arms to facilitate their flight."

But there were some of a different stamp. Thus the old Patriarch of Jerusalem was dragged to the Port by his friends, resisting separation from his flock in their last agony. Nor, indeed, was he separated, since he insisted upon receiving so many fugitives into his boat that it sank and all were drowned. Then across the dark oblivious years the face of William de Clement shines like a star. When the Templars had abandoned the gate of St. Anthony he returned to it, and thrice charged the Saracens alone. Alive he regained the centre of the city. But let the old chronicler of the time tell the rest

"Quand il fut revenu au milieu de la cité, son dextrier fut molt las, et lui-même aussi; le dextrier resista en contre les esperons, et s'arresta dans la rue comme qui n'en peut plus. Les Sarrasins, à coups de flêches, ruerent à terre frère Guillaume; ainsi ce loyal champion de Jésus Christ rendit l'âme a son Créateur."

The phrase in the medieval French, "Le dextrier resista en contre les esperons," which I may render, "The war-horse grew callous to the spurs," is very curious and expressive.

The end of the scene was terrible. I quote from Michaud. "The sea was tempestuous, the vessels could not approach close to land; the shore presented a heartrending spectacle; here a mother called upon her son, there a son called the assistance of his father, many precipitated themselves into the waves in despair; the mass of the people endeavoured to gain the vessels by swimming, some were drowned in the attempt, others were beaten off with oars."

There is more and worse to follow, almost too dreadful for quotation, so here let us stop. The tragedies of the Holy Land have no number, and perhaps even now they are not done with. Perchance, too, it is the same tale everywhere in the record of this cruel, bloodstained world. Only here, in the Holy Land, as it happens, those among us-but few, I suppose-who delve in the annals of the past, know their history wherein, in this instance, the greatest interests of mankind chance to be concerned. The sun of the Crusaders rose in blood, and in blood it set. "I came to bring not peace but a sword." Truly in Palestine, the very place of His coming, more even than elsewhere, that saying has been fulfilled. Why, we ask, why? our hearts stirred with common human pity for all those tormented dead. There is no answer, or none that we can understand.

Also the subject is very painful, so we will leave it— and Acre.

CHAPTER XVIII

JAFFA

To leave Haifa is comparatively easy, since, owing to a certain amount of shelter which the harbour enjoys, it is only in really bad storms that the traveller cannot embark. Thus on the night of our departure the sea was still high, but we managed, with some discomfort it is true, to win on board the steamer. To disembark at Jaffa is quite another thing.

Now there are two ways of proceeding from Haifa to Jaffa by sea, which, of course, is simple, in good weather; or to drive a matter of sixty miles over a hideous apology for a road, which runs along the sea-coast. This involves two full days' travelling, including a start at three or four in the morning on the second day, and a considerable expenditure, since such transport is not cheap. Long and anxiously did I ponder over the alternative. Look you, my reader, if the sea is rough at Jaffa, this happens. You go on to that singularly uninteresting place, Port Said, whence, after several days in an hotel at your own charges, you may, if lucky, take another boat back to Jaffa. Then, if the sea is still rough, you proceed to Beyrout, thence to return to Jaffa in a week or ten days' time.

Then, if the sea is still rough, once more you visit Port Said, and so on ad nauseam.

This is no fancy picture. We had fellow-travellers to whom these things happened, as they happened to those bold voyagers who, in face of my experienced advice, determined to try to land at Paphos, in Cyprus, an example that the reader may recall. Remembering

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