He was as diligent a student of maps and travels as of historical records, and seems to have had a rare faculty of realising in imagination scenes and countries of which he had only read.

In three chapters, glowing with oriental colour and rapid as a charge of Arab horse, he tells the story of the prophet and the Saracen empire.

Then the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Russians appear on the scene, to be soon followed by the Normans, and their short but brilliant dominion in Southern Italy.

But now the Seljukian Turks are emerging from the depths of Asia, taking the place of the degenerate Saracens, invading the Eastern empire and conquering Jerusalem.

The two waves of hostile fanaticism soon meet in the Crusades.