and both brothers proceeded towards Damietta:  they could not succeed, however, in raising the siege, and the garrison diminished daily through hunger, sickness, and constant attacks, and the fortress soon fell into the hands of the Crusaders, almost without a blow (November 5, 1219).  The Crusaders pillaged the town, taking from it four hundred thousand gold pieces.  The Italians also settled there, and made it the seat of their commerce with Egypt.  This conquest caused excitement in Europe, and the Pope called Pelagius “the second Joshua.”

[Illustration:  027.jpg public Fountain, Cairo.]

If the Franks had been more at peace among themselves, they might easily have pushed forward to Cairo after the fall of Damietta.  But the greatest discontent prevailed between the papal legate, Pelagius, and King John of Brienne, so that the latter soon after left Egypt, while Pelagius was forced to wait for reinforcements before he could get away from Damietta.

El-Kamil, meanwhile, reinforced his army with the help of the friendly Syrian princes, and, by destroying the channels and dams of the Nile canals, so endangered the Christian camp that they were soon forced to sue for peace, and offered to quit Damietta on the condition of an unmolested retreat.  El-Kamil, equally anxious for peace, accepted these conditions (August, 1221).  Scarcely had the AEyubites thus warded off:  the threatening danger when they proceeded to fall out among themselves.

After the death of El-Kamil, who in the end was generally regarded as overlord, a new war broke out, in March, 1238, between his son El-Adil II., who was reigning in Egypt, and his brother Ayyub, who occupied Damascus.  Ayyub conquered Egypt, but, in his absence, his uncle Ismail, Prince of Balbek, seized upon Damascus and made a league with the Franks in Palestine and several of the Syrian princes.  Through this unnatural league, Ismail, however, estranged not only the Moslem inhabitants of Syria, but also his own army.  Part of the army deserted in consequence to Ayyub, who was thus enabled easily to subdue the allied army (1240).  Another coalition was formed against him a few years later, and this time Da’ud of Kerak was one of the allies.  Ayyub sent a strong army of Egyptians, negroes, and Mamluks under the future sultan, Beybars, to Syria.  The Syrian troops fought unwillingly against their fellow-believers in the opposite ranks, and the wild Chariz-mites, who had also joined the ranks, inspired them with terror, so that they deserted the field of battle in the neighbourhood of Gaza (October, 1244).  The Christians, left to themselves, were not in a position to resist the enemy’s attacks; and the Egyptians made themselves masters of Jerusalem and Hebron, and in the following year obtained Damascus, Balbek, Ascalon, and Tiberias.  In 1248 Ayyub came again into Syria, in order to chastise El-Malik en-Nasir, Prince of Aleppo, who had seized upon Hemessa when he heard of the coming Crusaders