turret, reaching to the battlements of sea-girt fortresses and towns, and they were provided with engines for throwing stones, heavy wooden bolts with iron heads, and boiling pitch. It was undoubtedly at this time that the great rivalry rose between Venice and Genoa, when both were supposed to be helping the Christian cause in the East. It happened more than once that a convenient pretext for these quarrels presented itself in the shape of sacred relics of saints, coveted alike by Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians; and to obtain such precious spoil they slew each other without hesitation or remorse. They not only trusted that the saint, when bodily in their possession, would bestow his richest blessings upon those who had fought for him, but they were also well aware that [Sidenote: _1099. Defeat of the Pisans off Rhodes, A. Vicentino; ceiling of Sala dello Scrutinio, Ducal Palace._] his shrine would without doubt attract numerous pilgrims to their city, and thereby prove a permanent source of gain. It was in this way that the Venetians succeeded in carrying off from the island of Rhodes the body of Saint Nicholas, in order to exhibit it to the veneration of the faithful in the church they had already built to him on the Lido; not many years passed before they succeeded in stealing from Constantinople the body of Saint Stephen the martyr, and in the course of the century they possessed themselves of numerous treasures of the same kind. It must not be supposed, however, that they confined themselves to the discovery and seizure of such pious plunder. The end they pursued was of a more practical nature, and the whole result of their activity during their first wars in the East is found in the establishment of flourishing colonies throughout the Levant, and in the gradual, but in the end surprising subjection of the Byzantine Empire to their commercial interests. They made enormous sacrifices, they shed blood like water and spent money without stint, in order to establish themselves as the masters of the Ionian islands. [Sidenote: _Rom. ii. 42._] Though they hardly fought at all as crusaders, they derived immense advantages from the conquest of the Holy Land. In the kingdom of Jerusalem they acquired the right to own a street, a square, a bakery, and a public bath in every city; in the cities of Sidon and Acre, the ancient Ptolemais, they [Sidenote: _1123. Defeat of the Turks at Jaffa, Sante Peranda; same ceiling._] obtained even more ample privileges; finally, in the year 1123, they had made themselves masters of one-third of the city of Tyre, while leaving the other two-thirds in the possession of the king. They immediately established there an ambassador to represent the Republic, with the title of Bailo, and a consul to protect their financial interests. [Sidenote: _1123. Fall of Tyre, Aliense; same ceiling._]