in music, dancing, and song, in short, a veritable paradise!  When desirous of sending any of his band on some hazardous enterprise the Old Man would drug them and place them while unconscious in this glorious valley.  But it was not for many days that they were allowed to revel in the joys of paradise.  Another potion was given to them, and when the young men awoke they found themselves in the presence of the Old Man of the Mountain.  In the hope of again possessing the joys of paradise they were ready to embark upon any desperate errand commanded by the Old Man.”  Marco Polo mentions that the Old Man found crafty deputies, who with their followers settled in parts of Syria and Kurdistan.  He adds that, in the year 1252, Alaue, lord of the Tartars of the Levant, made war against the Old Man, and slaughtered him with many of his followers.  Yule gives a long list of murders or attempts at murder ascribed to the Assassins.  Saladin’s life was attempted in 1174-6.  Prince Edward of England was slain at Acre in 1172.  The sect is not quite extinct.  They have spread to Bombay and Zanzibar, and number in Western India over 50,000.  The mention of the Old Man of the Mountain will recall to the reader the story of Sinbad the Sailor in The Arabian Nights.]

[Footnote 59:  See Parchi, Caphtor wa-pherach, an exhaustive work on Palestine written 1322, especially chap. xi.  The author spent over seven years in exploring the country.]

[Footnote 60:  Socin, the author of Baedeker’s Handbook to Palestine and Syria, p. 557, gives the year of the earthquake 1157.  It is referred to again p. 31.  There was a very severe earthquake in this district also in 1170, and the fact that Benjamin does not refer to it furnishes us with another terminus ad quem.]

     [Footnote 61:  See the narrative of William of Tyre.]

[Footnote 62:  Gubail, the ancient Gebal, was noted for its artificers and stonecutters.  Cf.  I Kings v. 32; Ezek. xxvii. 9.  The Greeks named the place Byblos, the birthplace of Philo.  The coins of Byblos have a representation of the Temple of Astarte.  All along the coast we find remains of the worship of Baal Kronos and Baaltis, of Osiris and Isis, and it is probable that the worship of Adonis and Jupiter-Ammon led Benjamin to associate therewith the Ammonites.  The reference to the children of Ammon is based on a misunderstanding, arising perhaps out of Ps. lxxxiii. 8.]

[Footnote 63:  The Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund for 1886 and 1889 give a good deal of information concerning the religion of the Druses.  Their morality is there described as having been much maligned.]

     [Footnote 64:  Tyre was noted for its glass-ware and sugar
     factories up to 1291, when it was abandoned by the
     Crusaders, and destroyed by the Moslems.]