A .D. 1201. LETTEB OF TUE 1IASTEF. OF THE HOSPITAL. mascus, has been made lord of Babylon, for, Bke a peAdious and perjured man, he has expelled his nephew and others, whose rights to the succession he dreaded, from the kingdom of Babylon. There stiB flourish between him and the Sultan Aleph, and many others, great dissensions, which can never come to an end, and wiB never cease or fade away. Saphadin also, himself, being odious and abominable to his own followers, is in dread of domestic treachery, and, flunking himself safe in no place (as he has proved a traitor and perjured to his nephews, whom he is attempting also utterly to disinherit), does not dare go out of Babylon, a thing which, in the last year, has proved our safety and protection. For he had, in his boisterous manner, and going beyond all bounds, been making preparations to overrun us, and utterly to demolish the remnants of Christianity that still remained. But God has struck with the rod of His power the regions of Babylon in that river of Paradise,2 which used to water the lands of the enemy, so as to cause it not to flow, and in the past year it has sent forth no stream. In consequence of this, they are perishing by famine, and have lost their animals ; many of them have not scrupled to eell their sons, the rich the poor, the powerful the weak, that so they may preserve their lives from the famine, which they apprehend wiB be the result of the river being dried up, if it does not flow. Any prudent person indeed might imagine this, that if the river, by the will of God, should not flow, and thereby irrigate the fields, they wiB be in great danger of their lives. Consequently, infinite multitudes, compeBed by necessity and the severity of famine, have now filled our lands like swarms of locusts, for the purpose of sustaining their bodies ; where some moLVVt the soil belonging to the Church, some, after the manner of beasts, feed upon the shrubs in the woods, while others, dying of hunger, are found in spots in the woods wondrously eaten away by worms and birds. Wherefore, we, putting our trust in the Lord, who, when He wills, puts an end to battles, do hope that He is about to make a beginning of shewing compassion upon the Christian people, when He thus bruises their enemies. There is also afforded matter for astonishment among the nations, in that, a certain Saracen, of youthful age and of low a Meaning the Nile. s This may possibly signify that they had to extract sustenance from the clay of the earth.