All these persecutions could not stop the crowd of Christians who repaired to Jerusalem; the sight of the holy city sustaining their courage as it heightened their devotion. There were no evils, no outrages, that they could not support with resignation, when they remembered that Christ had been loaded with chains, and had died upon the cross in the places they were about to visit. Among the faithful of the West who arrived in Asia in the midst of the early conquests of the Mussulmans, history has preserved the names of St. Arculphus and St. Antoninus of Plaisance.[7] The latter had borne arms with distinction, when he determined to follow the pilgrims who were setting out for Jerusalem. He traversed Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. On his arrival on the banks of the Jordan, Judea had not yet fallen into the hands of the infidels; but the fame of their victories already filled the East, and their armies were threatening the holy city. Several years after the pilgrimage of St. Antoninus, Arculphus, accompanied by Peter, a French hermit, set out from the coast of England in a vessel bound for Syria. He remained nine months at Jerusalem, then under the dominion of the enemies of Christ. On his return to Europe, he related what he had seen in Palestine, and in all the sacred spots visited by the pilgrims of the West. The account of his pilgrimage was drawn up by a holy monk of the Hebrides, for the information and edification of the faithful. The Christians of Palestine, however, enjoyed some short intervals of security during the civil wars of the Mussulmans.[8] If they were not freed from their bondage, they could at least weep in peace upon the tomb of Christ. The dynasty of the Ommiades, which had established the seat of the Mussulman empire at Damascus, was always odious to the ever-formidable party of the Alides, and employed itself less in persecuting the Christians than in preserving its own precarious power. Merwan II., the last caliph of this house, was the most cruel towards the disciples of Christ; and when he, with all his family, sunk under the power of his enemies, the Christians and the infidels united in thanks to heaven for having delivered the East from his tyranny.