of England,” giving a long list of golden wands, golden combs, diamond buckles, chaplets, and circlets, golden crowns, imperial beavers, rich girdles, golden peacocks, and rings innumerable, adorned with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, topazes, and carbuncles, which she says she had inspected in the presence of the treasurer of the Temple at Paris, and that the same were safely deposited in the coffers of the Templars.[135] In the mean time the Mamlooks, “who had breathed in their infancy the keenness of a Scythian air,” advanced from the banks of the Nile to contend with the Tartars for the dominion of Palestine. Under the command of Bendocdar, the Mamlook general, they gained a complete victory over them in the neighbourhood of Tiberias, and drove back the stream of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. Bendocdar returned to Egypt the idol of his soldiers, and clothed with a popularity which rendered him too powerful for a subject. He aspired to the possession of the throne which he had so successfully defended, and slew with his own hand his sovereign and master Kothuz, the third Mamlook sultan of Egypt. The Mamlooks hailed him with acclamations as their sovereign, and on the 24th day of October, A. D. 1260, he was solemnly proclaimed sultan of Egypt, in the town of Salahieh in the Delta. Bendocdar was one of the greatest men of the age, and soon proved the most formidable enemy that the Templars had encountered in the field since the days of Saladin. The first two years of his accession to power were employed in the extension and consolidation of his sway over the adjoining Mussulman countries. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their sovereign, as did Damascus, Aleppo, Hems, and Jerusalem. His sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria; and his throne was defended by twenty-five thousand Mamlook cavalry. His power was further strengthened by an army of one hundred and seven thousand foot, and by the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand Arabians.