r faces in the dirt. When he came within sight of Jerusalem, the
caliph cried with a loud voice, "God is victorious. O Lord, give us an
easy conquest!" and, pitching his tent of coarse hair, calmly seated
himself on the ground. After signing the capitulation, he entered the
city without fear or precaution; and courteously discoursed with the
patriarch concerning its religious antiquities. Sophronius bowed before
his new master, and secretly muttered, in the words of Daniel, "The
abomination of desolation is in the holy place." At the hour of prayer
they stood together in the church of the resurrection; but the caliph
refused to perform his devotions, and contented himself with praying on
the steps of the church of Constantine. To the patriarch he disclosed
his prudent and honorable motive. "Had I yielded," said Omar, "to your
request, the Moslems of a future age would have infringed the treaty
under color of imitating my example." By his command the ground of
the temple of Solomon was prepared for the foundation of a mosch; and,
during a residence of ten days, he regulated the present and future
state of his Syrian conquests. Medina might be jealous, lest the
caliph should be detained by the sanctity of Jerusalem or the beauty of
Damascus; her apprehensions were dispelled by his prompt and voluntary
return to the tomb of the apostle.

To achieve what yet remained of the Syrian war the caliph had formed two
separate armies; a chosen detachment, under Amrou and Yezid, was left in
the camp of Palestine; while the larger division, under the standard
of Abu Obeidah and Caled, marched away to the north against Antioch
and Aleppo. The latter of these, the Beraea of the Greeks, was not
yet illustrious as the capital of a province or a kingdom; and the
inhabitants, by anticipating their submission and pleading their
poverty, obtained a moderate composition for their lives and religion.
But the castle of Aleppo, distinct from the city, stood erect on a lofty
artificial mound the sides were sharpened to a precipice, and faced with
free-stone; and the breadth of the ditch might be filled with water
from the neighboring springs. After the loss of three thousand men, the
garrison was still equal to the defence; and Youkinna, their valiant and
hereditary chief, had murdered his brother, a holy monk, for daring
to pronounce the name of peace. In a siege of four or five months, the
hardest of the Syrian war, great numbers of the Saracens