The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alroy, by Benjamin Disraeli

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Title: Alroy
The Prince Of The Captivity

Author: Benjamin Disraeli

Release Date: December 3, 2006 [EBook #20002]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALROY ***

Produced by David Widger

ALROY

OR

THE PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY

By Benjamin Disraeli

[Illustration: cover]

[Illustration: alroy-frontis-174]

[Illustration: frontis-label]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Being at Jerusalem in the year 1831, and visiting the traditionary
tombs of the Kings of Israel, my thoughts recurred to a personage whose
marvellous career had, even in boyhood, attracted my attention, as
one fraught with the richest materials of poetic fiction. And I then
commenced these pages that should commemorate the name of Alroy. In the
twelfth century, when he arose, this was the political condition of the
East:

The Caliphate was in a state of rapid decay. The Seljukian Sultans, who
had been called to the assistance of the Commanders of the Faithful, had
become, like the Mayors of the palace in France, the real sovereigns of
the Empire. Out of the dominions of the successors of the Prophet,
they had carved four kingdoms, which conferred titles on four Seljukian
Princes, to wit, the Sultan of Bagdad, the Sultan of Persia, the Sultan
of Syria, and the Sultan of Roum, or Asia Minor.

But these warlike princes, in the relaxed discipline and doubtful
conduct of their armies, began themselves to evince the natural effects
of luxury and indulgence. They were no longer the same invincible
and irresistible warriors who had poured forth from the shores of the
Caspian over the fairest regions of the East; and although they still
contrived to preserve order in their dominions, they witnessed with
ill-concealed apprehension the rising power of the Kings of Karasme,
whose conquests daily made their territories more contiguous.

With regard to the Hebrew people, it should be known that, after the
destruction of Jerusalem, the Eastern Jews, while they acknowledged
the supremacy of their conquerors, gathered themselves together for all
purposes of jurisdiction