I have spoken of the loss of Syria as the dismemberment of a limb from the Byzantine empire. In one respect it was something more. For their own safety, the Romans dismantled a broad belt of country on the borders of the now barbarian Syria. The towns and fortresses were razed, and the inhabitants withdrawn. And so the neutral zone became a barrier against travel to and fro. For all ordinary communication, whether social, religious, or commercial, the road was closed. The East was severed from the West. [Sidenote: Silence of Byzantine historians.] ‘The abomination of desolation’ wept over by Sophronius stood in the Holy Place. The cradle of Christianity, Zion the joy of the whole earth, was trodden under foot, and utterly cut off from the sight of its votaries. And all is told by the Byzantine writers in a few short lines. The pen of the Christian annalist might well refuse to write the story of cowardice and shame. CHAPTER XXI. RISING IN NORTHERN SYRIA. A.H. XVII. A.D. 638. [Sidenote: Rising in Northern Syria.] In the sixth year of Omar’s Caliphate, a desperate effort was made by the Byzantine power, and at one moment not without some prospect of success, to shake off the Moslem yoke and recover possession of Northern Syria. [Sidenote: Romans by sea support attack of Mesopotamian Bedouins. A.H. XVII. A.D. 638.] The movement is attributed by tradition to an appeal from the Christian tribes of Mesopotamia, which when the Roman army retired into Asia Minor, besought the Emperor to save them from falling under his adversary’s sway. Although the Moslem frontier on the side of Cilicia was tolerably secure, yet the seaboard to the west, and the desert border on the east of Syria, were both vulnerable. Most of the strongholds of Mesopotamia, it is true, had already fallen into the hands of Sád;[335] but the wandering Bedouins were not controlled by these, and with few exceptions the numerous Christian tribes still looked for support to the Persian or the Roman empires. The maritime power of the Romans was yet untouched. Cæsarea with its naval supports remained proof against landward attack; and the whole sea coast was kept unsettled by the hope, or by the fear, that the Roman fleet might at any time appear. The Emperor now promised the dwellers in Mesopotamia that he would second their efforts by way of the sea. An expedition was accordingly directed from the port of Alexandria upon Antioch; while the Bedouins gathered in great hordes around Hims. Thus seriously threatened, Abu Obeida called in Khâlid from Kinnisrîn, and every garrison that could be spared from the south. But the enemy was still too strong to be dispersed by the force at his disposal, and so he sent an urgent summons for assistance to Medîna. Thereupon Omar ordered Sád to despatch a strong column from Kûfa under Cacâa for the relief of Hims without a day’s delay; and likewise to effect a