The
Saracens at Medina had almost given Omar over, and began to conclude
that he would never stir from Jerusalem, but be won to stay there from
the richness of the country and the sweetness of the air; but especially
by the thought that it was the country of the prophets and the Holy
Land, and the place where we must all be summoned together at the
resurrection. At last he came, the more welcome the less he had been
expected. Abu Obeidah, in the mean time, reduced Kinnisrin and Alhadir,
the inhabitants paying down five thousand ounces of gold, and as many of
silver, two thousand suits of clothes of several sorts of silk, and five
hundred asses' loads of figs and olives. Yezid marched against Caesarea
in vain, that place being too well fortified to be taken by his little
army, especially since it had been reinforced by the Emperor, who had
sent a store of all sorts of provision by sea, and a reinforcement to
the garrison of two thousand men. The inhabitants of Aleppo were much
disheartened by the loss of Kinnisrin and Alhadir, well knowing that it
would not be long before their turn would come to experience themselves
what, till then, they had known only by report.
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