TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
It would be uninterefting to mark the names and fhort 
reigns of thefe princes, moft of whom fell by aflaffination. 
The chief events alone fhall be commemorated. 
Bibars I. who reigned from A. D. 1260 to 1277, was an 
adive prince, and feized moft of the Chriftian polTeffions in 
Syria. 
Kalil Afcraf, who afcended the throne in 1290, took Ptole- 
mais, and terminated the power of the Chriftians in Paleftine. 
During fucceflive reigns many contefts took place in Syria, 
the poffeffion of which was difputed by the Mamluk Sultans 
and the Moguls. 
Nazr Mohammed, who died in 1341, diftlnguifhed himfelf 
by the protection which he granted to agriculture and the arts. 
In 1348 a peftilence appeared in Egypt, or perhaps originally 
in Syria, which fpread over a great part of Europe. 
A. D. 1365. In Odober, Peter de Lufignan, king of Cyprus, 
befieged Alexandria ; but he was foon conftrained to aban- 
don it, for want of provifions *. Shaban Afcraf was then Sultan, . 
and 
* This expedition remains in confiderable obfcurity, though it may be re- 
garded as the laft dying fpark of the crufades, as the adventurers feem to have 
been of feveral nations. Fordun, Scotichr, vol. ii. p. 488, mentions Norman 
Lefley, 
