banquet at which he was entertaining the Sultan's emissaries, and, to avoid the possibility of mistake, he had a label bearing the name of each emir served with his head. As his guests looked horror-stricken upon the awful mess, he pretended to be distressed at not having understood their taste in the matter of food better, and had other and more agreeable dishes served thereafter. Of course, the poem was just an invention, based on the act of an earlier Crusader, who had a number of Moslems roasted and their bodies left lying behind his line of march, in order to spread the idea that his men were cannibals, and thus scare the enemy, who had been killing stragglers. But there can be no manner of question that Richard was thought to possess a sense of humor which rarely brought a smile from its victim. It must have been in a spirit of raillery that he addressed this proposal of marriage between Joan and el-Adel to the Sultan ; and the latter, at least, seems to have so understood it. Yet it was put forth in all solemnity, with considered details. The couple were to live in Jerusalem, which was to belong to them, together with the important cities of the coast — Acre, Jaffa and their dependencies, to be granted them by Richard, and also those places belonging to the Sultan. El-Adel was to be proclaimed King of all of these. He was also to retain all the fiefs and cities he then held. The Templars and Hospitallers were to have all the villages and strongholds belonging to them. Both