dispersion, this time without a battle, of the invaders. The next was a year of calamity. For Count Eoger of Aleppo, with his little array, was utterly defeated- by the Turks, the Count hims&lf being slain, and a large number of his knights taken prisoner and treated, with the greatest cruelty. Nor was this all. Ilgazi, the Prince of Aleppo, who had defeated Eoger, died, and was succeeded by his much abler nephew, Balak, who made an incursion into the territory of Edessa, and captured Count Jocelyn with his nephew, Galeran, and sixty knights. Thus the two most important out-lying provinces were deprived of their rulers. Moreover, the whole country was afflicted with countless swarms of locusts and rats, which devoured every green thing, so that the Christians were threatened with famine. Baldwin called together a general council at Nablous, and the patriarch preached to the people on the sinfulness of their lives, pointing out that their afflictions were due to their own crimes and excesses, and calling on them to amend and lead better lives. After confession and protestations of repentance, the king and his army, moved northwards to Antioch and defeated the Turks in their turn. Certain small changes in the internal administration, only of importance as pointing, to the decadence of the old ferocity against the Saracens, were introduced by the king in Jerusalem. For, besides remitting the old heavy dues on exportation and importation, so far as the Latins were concerned, Baldwin granted a sort of free trade to all Syrians, Greeks, "and even Saracens," to bring provisions of all kinds into the city for sale without fear of exaction. His wise idea was to increase the population of the city, and therefore its strength, by making it the most privileged town in his realm, and the central market of Palestine. But in 1124 a misfortune fell upon him which might have been fatal to his kingdom. For, after Jocelyn's