On the 13th Safar, A.H. 670 (20th September 1271), Bundukdar arrived unexpectedly at Damascus, and after a brief raid against the Ismaelians he returned to that city.  In the middle of Rabi I. (about 20-25 October) the Tartars made an incursion in northern Syria, and the troops of Aleppo retired towards Hamah.  There was great alarm at Damascus; the Sultan sent orders to Cairo for reinforcements, and these arrived at Damascus on the 9th November.  The Sultan then advanced on Aleppo, sending corps likewise towards Marash (which was within the Armenian frontier) and Harran.  At the latter place the Tartars were attacked and those in the town slaughtered; the rest retreated.  The Sultan was back at Damascus, and off on a different expedition, by 7th December.  Hence, if the travellers arrived at Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably find alarm existing at the advance of Bundukdar, though matters did not turn out so serious as they imply.

“Babylon,” of which Bundukdar is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly so styled (Bambellonia d’Egitto) in that age.  Babylon of Egypt is mentioned by Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy; it was the station of a Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives in the name of Babul, close to old Cairo.

Malik Dahir Ruknuddin Bibars Bundukdari, a native of Kipchak, was originally sold at Damascus for 800 dirhems (about 18_l._), and returned by his purchaser because of a blemish.  He was then bought by the Amir Alauddin Aidekin Bundukdar ("The Arblasteer”) whose surname he afterwards adopted.  He became the fourth of the Mameluke Sultans, and reigned from 1259 to 1276.  The two great objects of his life were the repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria, so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity.  William of Tripoli, in the work above mentioned, says:  “Bondogar, as a soldier, was not inferior to Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero.”  He admits, however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects; whilst Makrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans.  Yet if we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the second of Friar William’s comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a devil in malignity as well as in activity.  More than once he played tennis at Damascus and Cairo within the same week.  A strange sample of the man is the letter which he wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to announce to him the capture of the former city.  After an ironically polite address to Boemond as having by the loss of his great city had his title changed from Princeship (Al-Brensiyah) to Countship (Al-Komasiyah), and describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the attack of Antioch:  “We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of Saturday, the 4th