in the country. This happy state of things
was entirely due to the wise measures taken by Saladin, who, however,
kept himself so studiously in the background, that not even his name
is mentioned in the Itinerary. The deposition of the Fatimite Caliph
on Friday, September 10, 1171, and his subsequent death, caused little
stir. Saladin continued to govern Egypt as Nureddin's lieutenant. In
due course he made himself master of Barca and Tripoli; then he
conquered Arabia Felix and the Soudan, and after Nureddin's death he
had no difficulty in annexing his old master's dominions. The
Christian nations viewed his rapidly growing power with natural alarm.

About that time news had reached Europe that a powerful Christian king
named Prester John, who reigned over a people coming from Central
Asia, had invaded Western Asia and inflicted a crushing defeat upon a
Moslem army. Pope Alexander III conceived the hope that a useful ally
could be found in this priest-king, who would support and uphold the
Christian dominion in Asia. He accordingly dispatched his physician
Philip on a mission to this mysterious potentate to secure his help
against the Mohammedans. The envoy never returned.

Benjamin is one of the very few writers of the Middle Ages who gives
us an account of these subjects of Prester John. They were no other
than the infidels, the sons of Ghuz, or Kofar-al-Turak, the wild
flat-nosed Mongol hordes from the Tartary Steppes, who, in Benjamin's
quaint language, "worship the wind and live in the wilderness, who eat
no bread and drink no wine, but feed on uncooked meat. They have no
noses--in lieu thereof they have two small holes through which they
breathe."

These were not men likely to help the Christians. On the contrary, as
is so fully described in Benjamin's Itinerary, they broke the power of
Sultan Sinjar, the mighty Shah of Persia, who, had he been spared by
the men of Ghuz, would have proved a serious menace to Saladin.

It took Saladin some years to consolidate his empire.

In 1187 he felt himself in a position to engage the Franks in a
decisive conflict. At the battle of Tiberias, Guy, the Latin king, was
defeated and taken prisoner. The Knights-Templars and Hospitalers, of
whose doings at Jerusalem Benjamin gives us particulars, either shared
the fate of the king or were slain in action. Jerusalem fell soon
afterwards. Pope Alexander III roused the conscience of Europe, and
induced the pick of chivalry to emba