The fact that Saul Farhi was _Katib_ at Damascus, and his son Haim at Acre, and that, according to the general opinion, the Jews were better acquainted than anyone else with the route to Mecca, and with the ordinances and regulations, which were not only of a fiscal and commercial value, but also of great strategic importance――this fact did not fail to appeal to the imagination of Bonaparte. From this point of view, and considering all the circumstances, it would appear that Bonaparte’s appeal to the Jews was not so fantastic as it might seem at first sight. It was a well-considered scheme. Haim Farhi’s activity was twofold. It fell to his lot to look after the communications with Damascus and the Hedjaz, to remain in touch with all the distant centres of commerce and resources, and at the same time to cultivate very carefully relations with Constantinople. Both these departments of official activity abounded with difficulties and responsibilities. The roads were bad, the tribes, clans, and families much divided and continually at feud with one another. Communications were unsafe, and the danger of being cut off was always imminent. On the other hand, the maintenance of peaceful relations between a powerful, capricious _Pasha_ and the _Padishah_ with all his camarilla was naturally a hard task. Farhi had secured a reputation for exceptional ability in both directions. Having been brought up in the atmosphere of the _Katib’s_ profession, he was better informed than anyone else concerning the communications and the state of affairs in Damascus and elsewhere, while his dignity of manner, worthy of the descendant of an old Jewish family, his intellectual gifts and wonderful knowledge of Eastern languages, enabled him to cope most successfully with the duties of a diplomatic career. As to the latter function, there is the testimony of Jazzár, to whom is ascribed the statement that “Farhi’s notes to the Porte have the wonderful quality of being polite as well as expressive.” Needless to say, Farhi’s influence and activity, which would have been important even in times of peace, proved of exceptional importance at the eventful period when for the first time since the Crusades East and West were involved in a struggle for existence. It was one of the strangest caprices of history that this contest of strength between the greatest powers of the world――Bonaparte and the Ottoman Empire of that time, backed up by Great Britain――was to be decided in the Holy Land, in the neighbourhood of that little port, and that a son of the nation which had possessed this land and made it a land of glory, and to which God had promised it as an “everlasting inheritance,” was the very soul of the defence, frustrating all the plans of the enemy.