was not always so, and there were even occasions when the Christian ruler was allied to a Moslem. Feudalism, which was dying out in Europe, held sway in the Holy Land, as it had from the beginning of the Crusades, and holders of even small fiefs guarded jealously their independence. However, the weakness resulting from this lack of a concentrated control was matched up to this time by equal, if not greater, lack of cohesiveness among the Moslems. Finally, Egypt was held by the Fatimites, who had a Caliph of their own, and looked with scorn and enmity upon him of Bagdad. Little is known of Saladino youth and this little is contradictory. His devotion to his faith in later years, and his strong attachment to its pious teachers and expounders, have led some to assume that he was a model of propriety, assiduous in his studies and shunning the usual pleasures of the young — almost a recluse, in fact, and indifferent to his opportunities as the son of the leading favorite at the splendid court of Nur ed-din. His father was the only man of Damascus permitted to remain seated in the presence of the Sultan while his uncle, entrusted with the command of great armies and employed on the most important missions, was regarded as almost the equal of his master; yet this peer of the proudest of the young nobles is supposed to have been absorbed in his prayer books and the wisdom of his elders to the exclusion of all of the impulses and joys natural to his years. The only basis for this assumption appears to be