how to restore the fallen might of Islam and expel the Franks from Asia.  A necessary preliminary step was to put an end to the dissensions of the Atabeg rulers.  Nureddin did this effectually by himself annexing their dominions.  His next step was to gain possession of Egypt, and thereby isolate the Latin Kingdom.  Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, the three Italian republics who between them had command of the sea, were too selfish and too intent upon their commercial interests to interfere with the designs of the Saracens.  The Latin king Amalric had for some years sought to gain a foothold in Egypt.  In November, 1168, he led the Christian army as far as the Nile, and was about to seize Fostat, the old unfortified Arab metropolis of Egypt.  The inhabitants, however, preferred to set fire to the city rather than that it should fall into the hands of the Christians.  To this very day many traces may be seen in the neighbourhood of Cairo of this conflagration.  Nureddin’s army, in which Saladin held a subordinate command, by a timely arrival on the scene forced the Franks to retreat, and the Saracens were acclaimed as deliverers.

The nominal ruler of Egypt at that time was El-Adid, the Fatimite Caliph, and he made Saladin his Vizier, little thinking that that modest officer would soon supplant him.  So efficiently did Saladin administer the country that in a few months it had regained its prosperity, despite the five years’ devastating war which had preceded.

At this juncture the traveller Rabbi Benjamin came to Egypt.  Some three years earlier he had left his native place—­Tudela, on the Ebro in the north of Spain.  After passing through the prosperous towns which lie on the Gulf of Lyons, he visited Rome and South Italy.  From Otranto he crossed over to Corfu, traversed Greece, and then came to Constantinople, of which he gives an interesting account.  Very telling, for example, are the words:  “They hire from amongst all nations warriors called Barbarians to fight with the Sultan of the Seljuks; for the natives are not warlike, but are as women who have no strength to fight.”  After visiting the Islands of the Aegean, as well as Rhodes and Cyprus, he passed on to Antioch, and followed the well-known southern route skirting the Mediterranean, visiting the important cities along the coast, all of which were then in the hands of the Franks.

Having regard to the strained relations between the Christians and Saracens, and to the fights and forays of the Latin knights, we can understand that Benjamin had to follow a very circuitous way to enable him to visit all the places of note in Palestine.  From Damascus, which was then the capital of Nureddin’s empire, he travelled along with safety until he reached Bagdad, the city of the Caliph, of whom he has much to tell.

It is unlikely that he went far into Persia, which at that time was in a chaotic state, and where the Jews were much oppressed.  From Basra, at the mouth of the Tigris, he probably visited the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf, which in the Middle Ages was a great emporium of commerce, and thence proceeded to Egypt by way of Aden and Assuan.