One may cavil at some of the details, as for instance that " his nose was straight and regular," for that is not usual of oriental noses. Possibly Scott was influenced by the fact that the Kurds, of whom Saladin was one, were Aryans, and fell into the common error of believing that this meant a racial descent different from that of their Semitic neighbors. Somehow it seems more fitting that the Commander of the Faithful should have had a nose curving like his sword, though not necessarily large or obtrusive. There is justification, too, for questioning the " black eyes." Beha ed-din tells us that his eyes were soft and gentle and easily moved to tears. Does not that suggest the brown eyes which are common enough among orientals, and which can be stern, yet often suggest a haunting melancholy, rather than the fierce and passionate black? One certainly gets the impression from all the biographers that he was tall and he could not have been otherwise than spare with most of his life spent in the saddle and an almost ascetic abstemiousness in eating. Dark he undoubtedly was, both by inheritance and from constant exposure to sun and wind. Bearded, of course — remember the incident of the child frightened by the shaven Franks — and most likely the beard was black in his earlier manhood, though at the time Scott chose to present him we know — again from Beha eddin — that it was grizzling. This fact is brought to us at the time when Jerusalem was threatened by Richard's army and Saladin was on his knees in prayer. " I saw