r aspect of the soil and
climate. After a painful march, they pitched their tents before the
walls of Tripoli, [140] a maritime city in which the name, the wealth,
and the inhabitants of the province had gradually centred, and which now
maintains the third rank among the states of Barbary. A reenforcement
of Greeks was surprised and cut in pieces on the sea-shore; but the
fortifications of Tripoli resisted the first assaults; and the Saracens
were tempted by the approach of the praefect Gregory [141] to relinquish
the labors of the siege for the perils and the hopes of a decisive
action. If his standard was followed by one hundred and twenty thousand
men, the regular bands of the empire must have been lost in the naked
and disorderly crowd of Africans and Moors, who formed the strength, or
rather the numbers, of his host. He rejected with indignation the option
of the Koran or the tribute; and during several days the two armies were
fiercely engaged from the dawn of light to the hour of noon, when
their fatigue and the excessive heat compelled them to seek shelter and
refreshment in their respective camps. The daughter of Gregory, a maid
of incomparable beauty and spirit, is said to have fought by his side:
from her earliest youth she was trained to mount on horseback, to draw
the bow, and to wield the cimeter; and the richness of her arms and
apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks of the battle. Her hand,
with a hundred thousand pieces of gold, was offered for the head of the
Arabian general, and the youths of Africa were excited by the prospect
of the glorious prize. At the pressing solicitation of his brethren,
Abdallah withdrew his person from the field; but the Saracens were
discouraged by the retreat of their leader, and the repetition of these
equal or unsuccessful conflicts.

[Footnote 138: My conquest of Africa is drawn from two French
interpreters of Arabic literature, Cardonne (Hist. de l'Afrique et de
l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, tom. i. p. 8-55) and Otter,
(Hist. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 111-125, and 136.)
They derive their principal information from Novairi, who composed,
A.D. 1331 an Encyclopaedia in more than twenty volumes. The five general
parts successively treat of, 1. Physics; 2. Man; 3. Animals; 4. Plants;
and, 5. History; and the African affairs are discussed in the vith
chapter of the vth section of this last part, (Reiske, Prodidagmata ad
Hagji Chalifae Ta