e 4 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



ted him, that he determined to enlarge his fcheme of ven- 

 geance beyond the limits he had firft prefcribed to it. With 

 this view, he called the principal officers of his army toge- 

 ther, while he himfelf flood upon an eminence, the foldiers 

 furrounding him on all fides. Near him, on the fame emi- 

 nence, was a monk, noted for his holinefs, in the habit in 

 which he celebrated divine fervice. The king, in a long 

 fpeech pronounced with unufual vehemence, defcribed the 

 many offences committed againft him by the Mahometan 

 ftates on the coaft. The ringleaders of thefe commotions, he 

 declared, were the kings of Adel and Mara. He enumerated 

 various inftances of cruelty, of murder, and facrilege, of 

 which they had been guilty; the number of priefts that they 

 had flain, the churches that they had burned, and the Chri- 

 ilian women and children that they had carried into flavery, 

 which was now become a commerce, and a great motive of 

 war. They, and they only, had ilirred up his Mahometan Sub- 

 jects to infeft the frontiers both in peace and war. He faid, 

 that, confidering the immenfe booty which had been taken, 

 it might feem that avarice was the motive of his being 

 now in arms, but this, for his own part, he totally dis- 

 claimed. He neither had nor would apply the fmalleft por- 

 tion of the plunder to his own ufe, but confidered it as un- 

 lawful, as being purchafed with the blood and liberty of his 

 fubjects and brethren, the meaner! of whom he valued more 

 than the blood and riches of all the infidels in Adel. He, there- 

 fore, called them together to be witnefTes that he dedicated 

 himfelf a foidier to Jefus Chrift ; and he did now fwear upon 

 the holy eucharifl, that, though but twenty of his army 

 fbould join witb him, he would not turn his back upon At 

 del or Mara, till he had either forced them to tribute and 

 2 fubmiflion, 



