emperor. He was kindly received, and landed with nine hundred of his troops, intending to rise on the garrison in the night. One of his own men, however, betrayed the plot, and Youkenna and his followers were seized and imprisoned in the citadel.

In the mean time Yezed Ibn Abu Sofian, who had marched with two thousand men against Cæsarea, but had left Amru to subdue it, came with his troops into the neighborhood of Tyre, in hopes to find it in possession of Youkenna. The governor of the city, despising so slender a force, sallied forth with the greater part of his garrison, and the inhabitants mounted on the walls to see the battle.

It was the fortune of Youkenna, which he derived from his consummate skill in intrigue, that his failure and captivity on this occasion, as on a former one in the castle of Aazaz, served only as a foundation for his success. He contrived to gain over a Christian officer named Basil, to whose keeping he and the other prisoners were intrusted, and who was already disposed to embrace the Islam faith; and he sent information of his plan by a disguised messenger to Yezed, and to those of his own followers who remained on board of the fleet. All this was the work of a few hours, while the opposing forces were preparing for action.

The battle was hardly begun when Youkenna and his nine hundred men, set free by the apostate Basil, and conducted to the arsenal, armed themselves and separated in different parties. Some scoured the streets, shouting La ilaha Allah! and Allah Achbar! Others stationed themselves at the passages by which alone the guard could descend from the walls. Others ran to the port, where they were joined by their comrades from the fleet, and others threw wide the gates to a detachment of the army of Yezed. All this was suddenly effected, and with such cooperation from various points, that the place was presently in the hands of the Moslems. Most of the inhabitants embraced the Islam faith; the rest were pillaged and made slaves.

It was the tidings of the loss of Tripoli and Tyre, and of the capture of the fleet, with its munitions of war, that struck dismay into the heart of the prince Constantine, and made him quake within the walls of Cæsarea. He felt as if Âmru and his besieging army were already within the walls, and, taking disgraceful counsel from his fears, and example from his father's flight from Antioch, he removed furtively from Cæsarea with his family and vast treasure, gained promptly a convenient port, and set all sail for Constantinople.

The people of Cæsarea finding one morning that the son of their sovereign had fled in the night, capitulated with Amru, offering to deliver up the city, with all the wealth belonging to the family of the late emperor, and two hundred thousand pieces of silver, as ransom for their own property. Their terms were promptly accepted, Amru being anxious to depart on the invasion of Egypt.

The surrender of Cæsarea was followed by the other places in the province which had still held out, and thus, after a war of six years, the Moslem conquest of Syria was completed, in the fifth year of the Caliph Omar, the 29th of the reign of the emperor Heraclius, the 17th of the Hegira, and the 639th year of our redemption.

The conquest was followed by a pestilence, one of the customary attendants upon war. Great numbers of the people of Syria perished, and with

them twenty-five thousand of their Arabian conquerors. Among the latter was Abu Obeidan the commander-in-chief, then fifty-eight years or age; also Yezed Ibn Abu Sofian, Serjabil, ana other distinguished generals, so that the 18th year of the Hegira became designated as "The year of the mortality."

In closing this account of the conquest of Syria, we must note the fate of one of the most efficient of its conquerors, the invincible Khaled. He haa never been a favorite of Omar, who considered him rash and headlong, arrogant in the exercise of command, unsparing in the use of the sword. and rapacious in grasping the spoils of victory. His brilliant achievements in Irak and Syria, and the magnanimity with which he yielded the command to Abu Obeidah, and zealously fought under his standard, had never sufficed to efface the prejudice of Omar.

After the capture of Emessa, which was mainly effected by the bravery of Khaled, he received congratulations on all hands as the victor. Eschaus, an Arabian poet, sang his exploits in lofty verse, making him the hero of the whole Syrian conquest. Khaled, who was as ready to squander as to grasp, rewarded the adulation of the poet with thirty thousand pieces of silver. All this, when reported to Omar, excited his quick disgust; he was indignant at Khaled for arrogating to himself, as he supposed, all the glory of the war; and he attributed the lavish reward of the poet to gratified. vanity. "Even if the money came from his own purse," said he, "it was shameful squandering; and God, says the Koran, loves not a squanderer."

He now gave faith to a charge made against Khaled of embezzling the spoils set apart for the public treasury, and forthwith sent orders for him to be degraded from his command in presence of the assembled army; it is even said his arms were tied behind his back with his turban.

A rigid examination proved the charge of embezzlement to be unfounded, but Khaled was subjected to a heavy fine. The sentence causing great dissatisfaction in the army, the Caliph wrote to the commanders: "I have punished Khaled not on account of fraud or falsehood, but for his vanity and prodigality; paying poets for ascribing to him alone all the successes of the holy war. Good and evil come from God, not from Khaled!"

These indignities broke the heart of the veteran, who was already infirm from the wounds and. hardships of his arduous campaigns, and he gradually sank into the grave, regretting in his last moments that he had not died in the field of battle. He left a name idolized by the soldiery and beloved by his kindred; at his sepulture, all the women of his race cut off their hair in token of lamentation. When it was ascertained, at his death, that instead of having enriched himself by the wars, his whole property consisted of his warhorse, his arms, and single slave, Omar became sensible of the injustice he had done to his faithful general, and shed tears over his grave.

CHAPTER XXIV.

INVASION OF EGYPT BY AMRU-CAPTURE OF MEMPHIS-SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF ALEXANDRIA-BURNING OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LI

BRARY.

A PROOF of the religious infatuation, or the blind confidence in destiny, which hurried the

Moslem commanders of those days into the most extravagant enterprises, is furnished in the invasion of the once proud empire of the Pharaohs, the mighty, the mysterious Egypt, with an army of merely five thousand men. The Caliph, himself, though he had suggested this expedition, seems to have been conscious of its rashness; or rather to have been chilled by the doubts of his prime counsellor Othman; for, while Amru was on the march, he dispatched missives after him to the following effect: "If this epistle reach thee before thou hast crossed the boundary of Egypt, come instantly back; but if it find thee within the Egyptian territory, march on with the blessing of Allah, and be assured I will send thee all necessary aid."

The bearer of the letter overtook Amru while yet within the bounds of Syria; that wary general either had secret information, or made a shrewd surmise, as to the purport of his errand, and continued his march across the border without admitting him to an audience. Having encamped at the Egyptian village of Arish, he received the courier with all due respect, and read the letter aloud in the presence of his officers. When he had finished, he demanded of those about him whether they were in Syria or Egypt. "In Egypt," was the reply. Then," said Amru, we will proceed, with the blessing of Allah, and fulfil the commands of the Caliph.'

The first place to which he laid siege was Farwak, or Pelusium, situated on the shores of the Mediterranean, on the Isthmus which separates that sea from the Arabian Gulf, and connects Egypt with Syria and Arabia. It was therefore considered the key to Egypt. A month's siege put Amru in possession of the place; he then examined the surrounding country with more forethought that was generally manifested by the Moslem conquerors, and projected a canal across the Isthmus, to connect the waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. His plan, however, was condemned by the Caliph, as calculated to throw open Arabia to a maritime invasion of the Christians.

Amru now proceeded to Misrah, the Memphis of the ancients, and residence of the early Egyptian kings. This city was at that time the strongest fortress in Egypt, except Alexandria, and still retained much of its ancient magnificence. It stood on the western bank of the Nile, above the Delta, and a little east of the Pyramids. The citadel was of great strength, and well garrisoned, and had recently been surrounded with a deep ditch, into which nails and spikes had been thrown, to impede assailants.

The Arab armies, rarely provided with the engines necessary for the attack of fortified places, generally beleaguered them; cut off all supplies; attacked all foraging parties that sallied forth, and thus destroyed the garrison in detail, or starved it to a surrender. This was the reason of the long duration of their sieges. This of Misrah, or Memphis, lasted seven months in the course of which the little army of Amru was much reduced by frequent skirmishings. At the

end of this time he received a reinforcement of four thousand men, sent to him at his urgent entreaties by the Caliph. Still his force would have been insufficient for the capture of the place, had he not been aided by the treachery of its governor, Mokawkas.

This man, an original Egyptian, or Copt, by birth, and of noble rank, was a profound hypocrite. Like most of the Copts, he was of the Jacob

ite sect, who denied the double nature of Christ. He had dissembled his sectarian creed, however, and deceived the emperor Heraclius by a show of loyalty, so as to be made prefect of his native province, and governor of the city. Most of the inhabitants of Memphis were Copts and Jacobite Christians, and held their Greek fellow-citizens, who were of the regular Catholic church of Constantinople, in great antipathy.

Mokawkas in the course of his administration had collected, by taxes and tribute, an immense amount of treasure, which he had deposited in the citadel. He saw that the power of the emperor was coming to an end in this quarter, and thought the present a good opportunity to provide for his own fortune. Carrying on a secret correspondence with the Moslem general, he agreed to betray the place into his hands, on condition of receiving the treasure as a reward for his treason. He accordingly, at an appointed time, removed the greater part of the garrison from the citadel to an island in the Nile. The fortress was immediately assailed by Amru, at the head of his fresh troops, and was easily carried by assault, the Copts rendering no assistance. The Greek soldiery, on the Moslem standard being hoisted on the citadel, saw through the treachery, and, giving up all as lost, escaped in their ships to the main land; upon which the prefect surrendered the place by capitulation. An annual tribute of two ducats a head was levied on all the inhabitants of the district, with the exception of old men, women, and boys under the age of sixteen years. It was further conditioned that the Moslem army should be furnished with provisions, for which they would pay, and that the inhabitants of the country should, forthwith, build bridges over all the streams on the way to Alexandria. It was also agreed that every Mussulman travelling through the country should be entitled to three days' hospitality, free of charge.

The traitor Mokawkas was put in possession of his ill-gotten wealth. He begged of Amru to be taxed with the Copts, and always to be enrolled among them; declaring his abhorrence of the Greeks and their doctrines; urging Amru to persecute them with unremitting violence. He extended his sectarian bigotry even into the grave, stipulating that, at his death, he should be buried in the Christian Jacobite church of St. John, at Alexandria.

Amru, who was politic as well as brave, seeing the irreconcilable hatred of the Coptic or Jacobite Christians to the Greeks, showed some favor to that sect, in order to make use of them in his conquest of the country. He even prevailed upon their patriarch Benjamin to emerge from his desert and hold a conference with him; and subsequently declared that "he had never conversed with a Christian priest of more innocent manners or venerable aspect.' This piece of diplomacy had its effect, for we are told that all the Copts above and below Memphis swore allegiance to the Caliph.

Amru now pressed on for the city of Alexandria, distant about one hundred and twenty-five miles. According to stipulation, the people of the country repaired the roads and erected bridges to facilitate his march; the Greeks, however, driven from various quarters by the progress of their invaders, had collected at different posts on the island of the Delta, and the channels of the Nile, and disputed with desperate but fruitless obstinacy, the onward course of the conquerors. The severest check was given at Keram al Shoraik, by

which resulted to the Caliph is estimated at twelve millions of ducats.

We have shown that Amru was a poet in his youth; and throughout all his campaigns he manifested an intelligent and inquiring spirit, if not more highly informed, at least more liberal and extended in its views than was usual among the early Moslem conquerors. He delighted, in his hours of leisure, to converse with learned men, and acquire through their means such knowledge as had been denied to him by the deficiency of his education. Such a companion he found at Alexandria in a native of the place, a Christian of the sect of the Jacobites, eminent for his philological researches, his commentaries on Moses and Aristotle, and his laborious treatises of various kinds, surnamed Philoponus from his love of study, but commonly known by the name of John the Grammarian. An intimacy soon arose between the Arab conqueror and the Christian philologist; an intimacy honorable to Amru, but destined to be lamentable in its result to the cause of letters.

In

an evil hour, John the Grammarian, being encouraged by the favor shown him by the Arab general, revealed to him a treasure hitherto unnoticed, or rather unvalued, by the Moslem conquerors. This was a vast collection of books or manuscripts, since renowned in history as the ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY. Perceiving that in taking an account of everything valuable in the city, and sealing up all its treasures, Amru had taken no notice of the books, John solicited that they might be given to him. Unfortunately, the learned zeal of the Grammarian gave a consequence to the books in the eyes of Amru, and made him scrupulous of giving them away without permission of the Caliph. He forthwith wrote to Omar, stating the merits of John, and requesting to know whether the books might be given to him. The reply of Omar was laconic, but fatal. "The contents of those books," said he," are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they are, the Koran is sufficient without them; if they are not, they are pernicious. Let them, therefore, be destroyed."

Amru, it is said, obeyed the order punctually. The books and manuscripts were distributed as fuel among the five thousand baths of the city; but so numerous were they that it took six months to consume them. This act of barbarism, recorded by Abulpharagius, is considered somewhat doubtful by Gibbon, in consequence of its not being mentioned by two of the most ancient chroniclers, Elmacin in his Saracenic history, and Eutychius in his annals, the latter of whom was patriarch of Alexandria, and has detailed the conquest of that city. It is inconsistent, too, with the character of Amru, as a poet and a man of superior intelligence; and it has recently been reported, we know not on what authority, that many of the literary treasures thus said to have been destroyed, do actually exist in Constantinople. Their destruction, however, is generally credited and deeply deplored by historians. Amru, as a man of genius and intelligence, may have grieved at the order of the Caliph; while, as a loyal subject and faithful soldier, he felt bound to obey it.*

* The Alexandrian Library was formed by Ptolemy Soter, and placed in a building called the Bruchion. It was augmented in successive reigns to 400,000 volumes, and an additional 300,000 volumes were placed in a temple called the Serapeon. The Bruchion, with the books it contained, was burnt in the war

The fall of Alexandria decided the fate of Egypt and likewise that of the emperor Heraclius. He was already afflicted with a dropsy, and took the loss of his Syrian, and now that of his Egyptian dominions, so much to heart, that he underwent a paroxysm, which ended in his death, about seven weeks after the loss of his Egyptian capital. He was succeeded by his son Constan

tine.

While Amru was successfully extending his conquests, a great dearth and famine fell upon all Arabia, insomuch that the Caliph Omar had to call upon him for supplies from the fertile plains of Egypt; whereupon Amru dispatched such a train of camels laden with grain, that it is said, when the first of the line had reached the city of Medina, the last had not yet left the land of Egypt. But this mode of conveyance proving too tardy, at the command of the Caliph he dug a canal of communication from the Nile to the Red Sea, a distance of eighty miles, by which provisions might be conveyed to the Arabian shores. This canal had been commenced by Trajan, the Roman emperor.

The able and indefatigable Amru went on in this manner, executing the commands and fulfilling the wishes of the Caliph, and governed the country he had conquered with such sagacity and justice that he rendered himself one of the most worthily renowned among the Moslem generals.

CHAPTER XXV.

ENTERPRISES OF THE MOSLEMS IN PERSIA-DEFENCE OF THE KINGDOM BY QUEEN ARZEMIA -BATTLE OF THE BRIDGE.

FOR the sake of perspicuity, we have recorded the Moslem conquests in Syria and Egypt in a continued narrative, without pausing to notice events which were occurring at the same time in other quarters; we now recede several years to take up the course of affairs in Persia, from the time that Khaled, in the thirteenth year of the Hegira, in obedience to the orders of Abu Beker, left his victorious army on the banks of the Euphrates, to take the general command in Syria. The victories of Khaled had doubtless been owing in part to the distracted state of the Persian empire. In the course of an inconsiderable number of years, the proud sceptre of the Khosrus had passed from hand to hand; Khosru II., surnamed Parviz, having been repeatedly defeated by Heraclius, was deposed in 628, by a party of his nobles, headed by his own son Siroes (or Shiruyah), and was put to death by the latter in a vault under the palace, among the treasures he had amassed. To secure possession of the throne, Siroes followed up the parricide by the massacre of seventeen of his brothers. It was not ambition alone that instigated these crimes. He was enamored of a sultana in the harem of his father, the matchless Shireen. While yet reeking with his father's

of Cæsar, but the Serapeon was preserved. Cleopatra, it is said, added to it the library of Pergamas, given to her by Marc Antony, consisting of 200,000 volumes. It sustained repeated injuries during various subsequent revolutions, but was always restored to its ancient splendor, and numerous additions made to it. Such was its state at the capture of Alexandria by the Moslems.

blood he declared his passion to her. She recoiled from him with horror, and when he would have used force, gave herself instant death to escape from his embraces. The disappointment of his passion, the upbraidings of his sisters for the murders of their father and their brothers, and the stings of his own conscience, threw Siroes into a moody melancholy, and either caused, or added acuteness to a malady, of which he died in the course of eight months.

His infant son Ardisheer was placed on the throne about the end of 628, but was presently slain, and the throne usurped by Sheriyar, a Persian noble, who was himself killed after a very short reign. Turan-Docht, a daughter of Khosru Parviz, was now crowned and reigned eighteen months, when she was set aside by her cousin Shah Shenandeh, who was himself deposed by the nobles, and Arzemi-Docht* or Arzemia, as the name is commonly given, another daughter of Khosru Parviz, was placed on the throne in the year 632 of the Christian era. The Persian seat of government, which had been often changed, was at this time held in the magnificent city of Madain, or Madayn, on the Tigris, where was the ancient Ctesiphon.

Arzemia was distinguished alike for masculine talents and feminine beauty; she had been carefully instructed under her father Khosru, and had acquired sad experience, during the series of conspiracies and assassinations which had beset the throne for the last four years. Rejecting from her council the very traitors who had placed the crown upon her head, she undertook to wield the sceptre without the aid of a vizir, thereby giving mortal offence to the most powerful nobles of her realm. She was soon called upon to exert her masculine spirit by the continued aggressions of the Moslems.

The reader will recollect that the Moslem army on the Euphrates, at the departure of Khaled, was left under the command of Mosenna Ibn Haris (or Muthenna Ibn Hârith, as the name is sometimes rendered). On the accession of Omar to the Caliphat, he appointed Mosenna emir or governor of Sewad, the country recently conquered by Khaled, lying about the lower part of the Euphrates and the Tigris, forming a portion of the Persian province of Irak-Arabi. This was in compliance with the wishes and intentions of Abu Beker; though Omar does not appear to have had great confidence in the military talents of Mosenna, the career of conquest having languished in his hands since the departure of Khaled. He accordingly sent Abu Obeidah Sakfi, one of the most important disciples of the prophet, at the head of a thousand chosen men, to reinforce the army under Mosenna, and to take the lead in military enterprises. He was accompanied by Sabit Ibn Kais, one of the veterans of the battle of Beder.

The Persian queen, hearing of the advance of the Moslem army thus reinforced, sent an able general, Rustam Ibn Ferukh-Zad (or Feruchsad), with thirty thousand more, to repel them. Rustam halted on the confines of Irak, and sent forward strong detachments under a general named Dschaban, and a Persian prince named Narsi (or

Docht or Dokht, diminutive of dukhter, signifies the unmarried or maiden state.

This Abu Obeidah has sometimes been confounded with the general of the same name, who commanded in Syria; the latter, however, was Abu Obeidah Ibn Aljerah (the son of Aljerah),

Narsis). These were so roughly handled by the Moslems that Rustam found it necessary to hasten with his main force to their assistance. He arrived too late; they had been severally defeated and put to flight, and the whole country of Sewad was in the hands of the Moslems.

Queen Arzemia, still more aroused to the danger of her kingdom, sent Rustam a reinforcement led by Behman Dschadu, surnamed the Veiled, from the shaggy eyebrows which overshadowed his visage. He brought with him three thousand men and thirty elephants. These animals, of little real utility in warfare, were formidable in the eyes of those unaccustomed to them, and were intended to strike terror into the Arabian troops. One of them was the white elephant Mahmoud, famous for having been ridden by Abraha, the Ethiopian king, in foregone times, when he invaded Mecca, and assailed the Caaba. It was considered a harbinger of victory, all the enterprises in which it had been employed having proved successful.

With Behman, the heavy-browed, came also the standard of Kaoh, the sacred standard. It was originally the leathern apron of the blacksmith Kaoh, which he reared as a banner when he roused the people, and delivered Persia from the tyranny of Sohak. It had been enlarged from time to time, with costly silk, embroidered with gold, until it was twenty-two feet long and fifteen broad; and was decorated with gems of inestimable value. With this standard the fate of the kingdom was believed, by superstitious Persians, to be connected.

The Moslem forces, even with the reinforcement brought by Abu Obeidah Sakfi, did not exceed nine thousand in number; the Persians, encamped near the ruins of Babylon, were vastly superior. It was the counsel of Mosenna and the veteran Sabit, that they should fall back into the deserts, and remain encamped there until reinforcements could be obtained from the Caliph. Abu Obeidah, however, was for a totally different course. He undervalued the prowess of the Persians; he had heard Mosenna censured for want of enterprise, and Khaled extolled to the skies for his daring achievements in this quarter. He was determined to emulate them, to cross the Euphrates and attack the Persians in their encampment, In vain Mosenna and Sabit remonstrated. caused a bridge of boats to be thrown across the Euphrates, and led the way to the opposite bank. His troops did not follow with their usual alacrity, for they felt the rashness of the enterprise. While they were yet crossing the bridge, they were severely galled by a body of archers, detached in the advance by Rustam ; and were met at the head of the bridge by that warrior with his vanguard of cavalry.

He

The conflict was severe. The banner of Islam passed from hand to hand of seven brave champions, as one after another fell in its defence. The Persians were beaten back, but now arrived the main body of the army with the thirty elephants. Abu Obeidah breasted fearlessly the storm of war which he had so rashly provoked. He called to his men not to fear the elephants, but to strike at their trunks. He himself severed, with a blow of his scimetar, the trunk of the famous white elephant, but in so.doing his foot slipped, he fell to the earth, and was trampled to death by the enraged animal.

The Moslems, disheartened by his loss, and overwhelmed by numbers, endeavored to regain the bridge. The enemy had thrown combustibles