in Syria—­not much unlike one engaged in single combat who, distrustful of his own abilities and fearing the worst, summons together his whole strength in hopes of ending the dispute with one decisive blow.  Troops were sent to every tenable place which this inundation of the Saracens had not as yet reached, particularly to Caesarea and all the sea-coast of Syria, as Tyre and Sidon, Accah, Joppa, Tripolis, Beyrout, and Tiberias, besides another army to defend Jerusalem.  The main body, which was designed to give battle to the whole force of the Saracens, was commanded by one Mahan, an Armenian, whom I take to be the very same that the Greek historians call Manuel.  To his generals the Emperor gave the best advice, charging them to behave themselves like men, and especially to take care to avoid all differences or dissensions.  Afterward, when he had expressed his astonishment at this extraordinary success of the Arabs, who were inferior to the Greeks, in number, strength, arms, and discipline, after a short silence a grave man stood up and told him that the reason of it was that the Greeks had walked unworthily of their Christian profession, and changed their religion from what it was when Jesus Christ first delivered it to them, injuring and oppressing one another, taking usury, committing fornication, and fomenting all manner of strife and variance among themselves.  The Emperor answered, that he was “too sensible of it.”  He then told them that he had thoughts of continuing no longer in Syria, but, leaving his army to their management, he purposed to withdraw to Constantinople.  In answer to which they represented to him how much his departure would reflect upon his honor, what a lessening it would be to him in the eyes of his own subjects, and what occasion of triumph it would afford to his enemies the Saracens.  Upon this they took their leave and prepared for their march.  Besides a vast army of Asiatics and Europeans, Mahan was joined by Al Jabalah Ebn Al Ayham, King of the Christian Arabs, who had under him sixty thousand men.  These Mahan commanded to march always in the front, saying that there was nothing like diamond to cut diamond.  This great army, raised for the defence of Christian people, was little less insupportable than the Saracens themselves, committing all manner of disorder and outrage as they passed along; especially when they came to any of those places which had made any agreement with the Saracens, or surrendered to them, they swore and cursed and reviled the inhabitants with reproachful language, and compelled them by force to bear them company.  The poor people excused their submission to the Saracens by their inability to defend themselves, and told the soldiers that if they did not approve of what they had done, they ought themselves to have come sooner to their relief.