the dwindling away of that full stream of pilgrim soldiers who had formerly flocked yearly to the East. The Second Crusade, indeed, was productive of the greatest harm in this respect to the Christian kingdom. It drained the West of all the men who wished to become pilgrims ; and the fact that so few returned deterred effectually those who would otherwise have wished to go. Other causes, of course, were at work. Of these, the chief were the crusades against the Moors in Spain and the Pagans in Germany, and the development of pilgrimages to local shrines and saints. It was much easier and a great deal pleasanter, though not so glorious, to ride across a friendly country to a saint not many hundreds of miles away, than to journey in peril and privation along the long and weary road which led to Jerusalem. But there was a lull in the incursions of Nûr-ed-din. He and Shirkoh had other and vaster projects on hand. They sent to the caliph at Baghdad, and pointed out the manifest advantages which would accrue from the extinction of the Fatemite power, the union of both caliphates into one, and the possession of a country so rich and so fertile as Egypt, the people of which were enervated by pleasure and luxury, and absolutely unfitted for any kind of resistance. The caliph listened. Surrounded as he was by every luxury that the heart of man could desire, it mattered little to him whether another rich country was added to his nominal rule or not. But it mattered greatly that the divided allegiance of Islam should be made to run again in one stream, and he consented to give all his influence provided the war were made a religious war. To this Nûr-ed-din and his general eagerly assented, and the caliph wrote to all the princes who owned his sway, commanding them to assist Shirkoh in his intended invasion of Egypt. Amaury possessed prudence enough to know that if the Syrians conquered Egypt his own position would be