ARABIC LETTERS. 399 add the summons which Hulacu the Tartar conqueror of the East, (who took Bagdad, and entirely subverted the government of the Saracens,) sent to Al Malek Annasar, sultan ofAleppo, in the year of the Hejra 657, (of Christ 1259.)

Let Al Malek Annasar know, that we sat down before Bagdad in the 655th year (of the Hejra,) and took it by the sword of the most high God : and we brought the master of it before us, and demanded two things of him ; to which he, not answering, brought deserved punishment upon himself. As it is written in your Koran, '' God doth not change the condition ofa people, till their own minds are changed.' He took care of his wealth, and fate brought him to what he is come to. He chose to exchange precious lives for pieces of money made of vile metal ; which is plainly the same that God says They found []the reward of] what they had done present with them. For we have attained by the power of God, what we desired ; and by the help of the most high God we shall increase. Nor is there any doubt of our being the army of God upon his earth. He created us, and gave us power over every one upon whom his anger rests. Wherefore, let what is past be to you an example, and what we have mentioned a warning.

Fortifications are nothing in our hands, nor doth •* A quotation from the Koran. The Tartar was a deist, and quotes the Koran in derision.