AND LOWER EGYPT. 77 



glory of having made a defence which may be 

 considered as a prod g) ; whether in braving, at 

 Malta, the fury and the valour of Soliman, they 

 fixed the boundary of the Ottoman career; we see 

 them displaying, on all occasions, that heroic cou- 

 rage and skill which transform a handful of men 

 into a might) army. 



In order to keep alive this martial ardour, this 

 genius of battles and of victories, it was necessary 

 for them to maintain that observance of rules, those 

 forms of discipline, that austerity of manners, which 

 constitute the force and the permanency of all mi- 

 litarv establishments. But the indolence, or rather 

 the dejection of the Mussulmans, was the epoch of 

 relaxation in the institutions of the Order. They 

 Successively disused their exercises, frivolous in ap- 

 pear! nee but attention to which had formed a nur- 

 sery ot heroes; luxury assumed the place of the no- 

 ble simplicity of soldiers; idleness, and the corrup- 

 tive cohorts that march in her train, succeeded tothe 

 activity . to the almost severity of warlike exertion ; 

 the hard n< ss of camps retired before the cfFemi- 

 naev el < hies. The struggle between the knights 

 and Turks had now dwindled into a phantom, 

 ot which some pitiful expeditions of corsairs kept 

 up the shadow ; the caravans or cruises of the gal- 

 leys, were now nothing but parties of pleasure to 

 and from the delicious havens of Sicily ; the de- 

 fence 



