[235] “Anna Comnena adds, that to complete the deceit, he was shut up with a dead cock; and wonders how the barbarian could endure the confinement and putrefaction.”—Notes to Gibbon.—Trans.
[236] This may at first appear a singular pledge; but when we remember the great consideration in which beards were and are held in the East, we are reconciled to the fact. Beckford makes Vathek inflict loss of beard upon the sages who cannot decipher the magic characters upon the sabres, as the greatest possible punishment; and few were better acquainted with Eastern manners than the master of Font-hill Abbey.—Trans.
[237] These details are taken from the Arabian historian Novaïry.
[238] Sir William d’Avenant elegantly calls books “the monuments of deceased minds.”—Trans.
[239] Aboulfeda in his account justifies the Genoese for the massacre of the Mussulmans; the city being taken by assault, they did not exceed the usual rights of war. Another Arabian historian, Ebn-Abi-Tai, says that the Christians exhibited at the taking of Tripoli the same destructive fury as the Arabs had who burnt the library of Alexandria. The same historian speaks of the incredible number of three millions of volumes. We have preferred the version of Novaïry, who reduces the number of volumes to a hundred thousand. This author states that the library of Tripoli was founded by the cadi Aboutaleb Hasen, who had himself composed several works.
[240] The governor of Mossoul is called by the Latins Maledoctus, Mandult, and by the Arabians Mauduts. Togdequin was prince of Damascus.
[241] We have avoided mentioning too frequently the sultans and emirs of Syria, whose names seem the more barbarous as they are correctly written.
[242] Tabari and Aboul-Feda.
[243] See, for an account of this disaster, Kemaleddin and Tabari.
[244] The account of this battle, and the preparations for it, are taken from Robert of the Mount ’Robertus de Monte, Appendice ad Sigebertum). This author speaks of the fast the troops were ordered to undergo, as had been done at Nineveh: “Universo pecori pabula negabantur.” He also speaks of the milk of the holy Virgin, carried in a vase: “Episcopus Bethleemides ferens in pyxide lac sanctæ Mariæ virginis.”