scouts, the army of Conrad was all but destroyed by the Turks, near
Iconium, while the army of Louis, after undergoing infinite hardships,
was wrecked in the defiles of the Pisidian mountains. The fragments of
the two armies uniting made their way to Syria, where they co-operated
with forces of the princes of Jerusalem and Antioch, in laying seige
to Damascus, but without effect. In 1149 Conrad and Louis returned to
Europe, and the second crusade was at an end, having attained nothing
but the expenditure of more than a million of lives.

THE THIRD CRUSADE.

33. A period of forty years elapsed before Europe fitted out another
crusade. Meanwhile the struggle between the Christian and the Turks in
Syria was carried on without intermission. Noureddin, the son of the
conqueror of Edessa, displayed a genius which astonished both
Christians and Turks. Keeping possession of Edessa, he aimed at
extending his conquest at the expense of the Christians still further.
For some time he was kept in check by the abilities of Baldwin III,
King of Jerusalem. On his death, in 1162, his brother Amalric, far
inferior to Baldwin in ability, succeeded to the throne.

34. At this crisis, while Noureddin, the Sultan of Aleppo, and
Amalric, the Christian King of Jerusalem, were the rival powers in
Syria, occurred a circumstance which exercised considerable influence
on the subsequent course of events, and which makes necessary a
retrospective glance.

35. At the time of the first crusade Palestine was the scene of a
violent contest between the Turks, who had poured down from the North,
conquering as they went, and the Fatimites of Egypt, who had possessed