d as the heirs of paradise. Caled survived his brethren
about three years: and the tomb of the Sword of God is shown in the
neighborhood of Emesa. His valor, which founded in Arabia and Syria
the empire of the caliphs, was fortified by the opinion of a special
providence; and as long as he wore a cap, which had been blessed
by Mahomet, he deemed himself invulnerable amidst the darts of the
infidels.

The place of the first conquerors was supplied by a new generation of
their children and countrymen: Syria became the seat and support of
the house of Ommiyah; and the revenue, the soldiers, the ships of that
powerful kingdom were consecrated to enlarge on every side the empire of
the caliphs. But the Saracens despise a superfluity of fame; and their
historians scarcely condescend to mention the subordinate conquests
which are lost in the splendor and rapidity of their victorious career.
To the _north_ of Syria, they passed Mount Taurus, and reduced to their
obedience the province of Cilicia, with its capital Tarsus, the ancient
monument of the Assyrian kings. Beyond a second ridge of the same
mountains, they spread the flame of war, rather than the light of
religion, as far as the shores of the Euxine, and the neighborhood of
Constantinople. To the _east_ they advanced to the banks and sources of
the Euphrates and Tigris: the long disputed barrier of Rome and Persia
was forever confounded the walls of Edessa and Amida, of Dara and
Nisibis, which had resisted the arms and engines of Sapor or Nushirvan,
were levelled in the dust; and the holy city of Abgarus might vainly
produce the epistle or the image of Christ to an unbelieving conqueror.
To the _west_ the Syrian kingdom is bounded by the sea: and the ruin of
Aradus, a small island or peninsula on the coast, was postponed during
ten years. But the hills of Libanus abounded in timber; the trade of
Phnicia was populous in mariners; and a fleet of seventeen hundred barks
was equipped and manned by the natives of the desert. The Imperial
navy of the Romans fled before them from the Pamphylian rocks to the
Hellespont; but the spirit of the emperor, a grandson of Heraclius, had
been subdued before the combat by a dream and a pun. The Saracens rode
masters of the sea; and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades,
were successively exposed to their rapacious visits. Three hundred years
before the Christian aera, the memorable though fruitless siege of Rhodes
by Demetrius h