A conduct so unworthy a sovereign made him contemptible, and his subjects offered up vows that his brother Nedjm-Eddin would deprive him of his crown. This prince had no other wish, but he was afraid of intrusting a project of this nature in the hands of a fickle populace. A t last all the orders of the state, oppressed by the tyrannies of Melikul-Adil, called Nedjm-Eddin to the throne. He made his entry into Cairo the ninth day of the moon Chu wai, in the year 637 (May 3, A.D. 1240), and was proclaimed sultan of Syria and Egypt Melikul-Adil was imprisoned, after having reigned two years and eighteen days. Nedjm-Eddin, on mounting the throne, found only one solitary piece of gold, and one thousand drachms of silver, in the public treasury. He assembled tbe grandees of the state, and those in particular who bad had any share in the administration of the finances, under the reign of his brother, and asked what had been their reasons for deposing Melikul-Adil. " Because he was a madman," they replied. Then, addressing himself to the chiefs of the law, he asked if a madman could dispose of the public money. And on their answering that it was contrary to law, he ordered all who had received any sums of money from his brother to bring them back to the treasury, or they should pay for their disobedience with their heads. By this means, he recovered seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand pieces of gold, and two millions three hundred thousand drachms of silver. In the year 638 (1240), Salih-Imad-Eddin, who had surprised Damascus, under the reign of Melikul-Adil, fearful that the new sultan would deprive him of this unjust conquest, made an offensive and defensive alliance with the Franks of Syria. He gave them, the better to secure their support, the towns of Safet* and Chakif,t with their territories, half of the town of Sidon, and a part of the country of the * Safet, a moderate-sized town in Palestine. It has a fortress which commands the Lake of Tiberias, and is situated in fifty-seven degrees thirty-five minutes longitude, thirty-two degrees thirty minutes latitude. t Chakif. Abulfeda mentions two fortresses under the name of Chakif, Chakif-Arnoun, and Chakif-Tiroun : the first, partly cut in a rock, is on one of the roads leading from Sidon to Damascus. It is the second, called Tiroun, which is noticed in the text. It lies towards the sea, in regard to Safet. Chakif-Arnoun is, in like manner, distant from the sea, on the top of Lebanon.