In the events which have been mentioned, the Crusaders were victorious; and the Crescent, in the outset of the contest, waned before the Cross. But it was only for a time that it did so. The situation of Palestine in Asia, constituting it the advanced post as it were of Christendom across the sea, in the regions of Islamism, perpetually exposed it to the attack of the Eastern powers. They were at home, and fought on their own ground, and with their own weapons, in the long contest which followed the first conquest of Palestine; whereas the forces of the Christians required to be transported, at a frightful expense of life, over a hazardous journey of fifteen hundred miles in length, or conveyed by sea at a very heavy cost from Marseilles, Genoa, or Venice. Irresistible in the first onset, the armament of the Christians gradually dwindled away as the first fervour of the Holy Wars subsided, and the interminable nature of the conflict in which they were engaged with the Oriental powers became apparent. It was the same thing as Spain maintaining a transatlantic contest with her South American, or England with her North American colonies. Indeed, the surprising thing, when we consider the exposed situation of the kingdom of Palestine, the smallness of its resources, and the scanty and precarious support it received, after the first burst of the Crusades was over, from the Western powers, is not that it was at last destroyed, but that it existed so long as it did. The prolongation of its life was mainly owing to the extraordinary qualities of one man.