Whatever truth there may be in these traditions, Omar did not prolong his visit to Jerusalem or its environs. Having settled the matter for which he came, he proceeded to divide Palestine into two provinces; one of which he assigned to the government of Jerusalem, and the other to that of Ramleh. He then returned by the way that he came to Medîna.[331] [Sidenote: Causes which facilitated the conquest of Syria.] Thus was Syria, from the farthest north to the border of Egypt, within the space of three years, lost to Christendom. One reflects with wonder at the feeble resistance offered by the Byzantine power, both military and naval, and by its many strongholds of antiquity and renown, to this sudden inroad. The affinities of the Syrian Bedouins to the Arabian nation facilitated no doubt the conquest. There was also an element of weakness in the settled population; for luxurious living had demoralised the effeminate race and rendered it unable to resist the onset of the wild and fanatic invaders. Still worse, they had no heart to fight. What patriotic vigour might have still survived, was lost in religious strife. Sects rejoiced each in the humiliation of the other; and, as is usual in such controversies, the finer the distinction, the more inveterate the hatred thereby engendered. Loyalty was thus smothered by bitter jealousies, and there are not wanting instances even of active assistance rendered to the enemy.[332] There may have been among some, even a sense of relief in the equal though contemptuous licence given, by the toleration or haughty indifference of the conquerors, to all alike. But there was a still deeper cause, and that was the growing decrepitude of the Roman empire. No vigour remained to drive back the shock of barbarian invaders. And while northern hordes could by degrees amalgamate with the nations which they overran, the exclusive faith and the intolerant teaching of Islam kept the Arabs a race distinct and dominant. [Sidenote: The Arabs did not settle in Syria to the same extent as in Chaldæa.] The conquerors did not spread themselves abroad in Syria, as in Chaldæa. They founded no such Arabian towns and military settlements as Bussorah and Kûfa. The country and climate were less congenial, and the beautiful scenery, of the land of brooks of water and depths springing out of valleys and hills, the land of vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, the land of oil-olive and honey, offered fewer attractions to the Arabian races than the heated sandy plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, with their desert garb of tamarisk and groves of the familiar date. They came to Syria as conquerors; and, as conquerors, they settled largely, particularly the southern tribes, in Damascus, Hims, and other centres of administration. But the body of the native Syrians remained after the conquest substantially the same as before; and through long centuries of degradation they clung, as to some extent they still cling, to their ancestral faith.