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Pilgrimage in the Holy Land
St John Phocas, tr. Stewart, 1889
Chapter 3
Next to this and to Antioch comes Laodicea,1 a great and populous city, albeit time hath dimmed its splendour also, and after it Gabala2 or Zebel. Next to Gabala comes a castle which is named Antarada,3 or Tortosa. And in this manner various forts lie along the coast as far as Tripolis, while along the interior of the country there stretches a great mountain-range, inhabited by the people called Chasysii,4 a Saracen nation, which neither professes Christianity nor the doctrines of Machumet, but worships God according to a heresy of its own. They call the chief man among them the ambassador of God, and those who are sent by his commands to the governors of great provinces slay them with swords, leaping upon them unawares, and perish as soon as they have accomplished their daring deeds, fighting few against a multitude after the perpetration of their crime. This they regard as martyrdom and the putting on of immortality.
Notes
- Latakieh.
- Jebeleh.
- Antaradus, Tartūs.
- The Assassins, or sect of the Ismailians, whose chief, under the name of the ‘Old Man of the Mountains,’ acquired such an evil reputation amongst the Crusaders.