[Footnote 52:  The several MSS. give different readings.  The
     kingdom reached to the Taurus mountains and the Sultanate of
     Rum or Iconium.]

[Footnote 53:  Beazley remarks that Benjamin must have passed along this coast before 1167, when Thoros died at peace and on terms of vassalage to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.  Malmistras is forty-five miles from Tarsus.  Both had been recaptured by Manuel in 1155. Josippon, I, chap. i, identifies Tarshish with Tarsus.]

[Footnote 54:  No doubt the river Fer, otherwise Orontes, is here referred to.  Ancient Antioch lies on the slope of Mount Silpius, and the city-wall erected by Justinian extended from the river up to the hill-plateau.  Abulfeda says:  “The river of Hamah is also called Al Urunt or the Nahr al Maklub (the Overturned) on account of its course from south to north; or, again, it is called Al’ Asi (the Rebel), for the reason that though most rivers water the lands on their borders without the aid of water-wheels, the river of Hamah will not irrigate the lands except by the aid of machines for raising its waters.” (Guy le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, p. 59.) It is strange that R. Benjamin should call the Orontes the river Jabbok, but he always takes care to add that it rises in the Lebanon, to avoid any misconception that the Jabbok which falls into the Jordan is meant.]

[Footnote 55:  Boemond III, surnamed le Baube (the Stammerer), succeeded his mother in 1163.  We owe the doubtless correct rendering of this passage to the ingenuity of the late Joseph Zedner.  Benjamin visited Antioch before 1170, when a fearful earthquake destroyed a great part of the city.]

[Footnote 56:  It must be inferred from the context here, as well as from other passages, that when Benjamin mentions the number of Jews residing at a particular place he refers to the heads of families.]

[Footnote 57:  Gebal is the Gabala of ancient geographers.  See Schechter, Saadyana, p. 25.  Many travellers, among them Robinson, identify Baal-Gad with Banias, others suppose it to be Hasbeya.]

[Footnote 58:  Hashishim—­hemp-smokers—­hence is derived the word “assassin.”  See Socin, Palestine and Syria, pp. 68 and 99.  Ibn Batuta and other Arabic writers have much to say about the Assassins or Mulahids, as they call them.  They are again referred to by Benjamin on p. 54, where he states that in Persia they haunted the mountainous district of Mulahid, under the sway of the Old Man of the Mountain.  The manner in which the Sheik acquired influence over his followers is amusingly described by Marco Polo (The Book of Ser Marco Polo:  translated and edited by Colonel Sir Henry Yule; third edition, London, John Murray, 1903):  “In a fertile and sequestered valley he placed every conceivable thing pleasant to man—­luxurious palaces, delightful gardens, fair damsels skilled