TUB KMOHTS TEMPLARS. 123 them at early dawn in battle array, " horrible in arms, having Gubard ne their whole bodies eased with triple mail." He compares the ^"""uì?! noise made by their advancing squadrons to the loud humming of bees ! and describes them as animated with " a flaming desire of vengeance."* Saladin had behind him the lake of Tiberias, his infantry was in the centre, and the swift cavalry of the desert was stationed on either wing, under the command of Fahi-ed-deen (teacher of religion.) The Templars rushed, we are told, like lions upon the Moslem infidels", and nothing could withstand their heavy and impetuous charge. " Never," says an Arabian doctor of the law, " have Ί seen a bolder or more powerful army, nor one more to be feared by the believers in the true faith." Saladin set fire to the dry grass and dwarf shrubs which lay between both armies, and the wind blew the smoke and the · flames directly into the faces of the military friars and their horses. The fire, the noise, the gleaming weapons, and all the accompaniments of the horrid scene, have given full scope to the descriptive powers of the oriental writers. They compare it to the last judgment ; the dust and the smoke obscured the face of the sun, and the day was turned into night. Sometimes gleams of light darted like the rapid lightning amid the throng of combatants ; then you might see the dense columns of armed warriors, now immovable as mountains, and now sweeping swiftly across the landscape like the rainy clouds over the fece of heaven. " The sons of paradise and the children of fire," say they, " then decided their terrible quarrel ; the arrows rustled through the air like the wings of innumerable sparrows, the sparks flew from the coats of mail and the glancing sabres, and the blood spurting forth from the bosom of the throng deluged the earth like the rains of heaven." "The avenging sword of the true believers was drawn forth against the infidels ; the faith of the • Multammmt F. Afuhummed, X. Koreisff. Ispahan, apud St/nt/tens, p. 18.