DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0103
AND LOWER EGYPT. 77
glory of having made a defence which may be
considered as a prodigy ; whether in braving, at
Malta, the fury and the valour of Soliman, they
fixed ihe boundary of the Ottoman career; we see
them displaying, on all occasions, that heroic cou-
rage and skill which transform a handful of men
into a mighty army.
In order to keep alive this martial ardour, this
genius of battles and of victories, it was necessary
for them to maintain that observance of rules, those
forms of discipline, that austerity of manners, which
constitute the force and the permanency of all mi-
litary establishments. But the indolence, or rather
the dejection of the Mussulmans, was the epoch of
relaxation in the institutions of the Order. They
successively disused their exercises, frivolous in ap-
pearance, but attention to which had formed a nur-
sery of heroes; luxury assumed the place of the no-
ble simplicity of soldiers; idleness, and the corrup-
tive cohorts that march in her train, succeeded to the
activity, to the almost severity of warlike exertion ;
the hardiness of camps retired before the effemi-
Itacv of cities. The struggle between the knights
and Turks had now dwindled into a phantom,
of which some pitiful expeditions of corsairs kept
up the shadow ; the caravans or cruises of the gal-
leys, were now nothing but parties of pleasure to
and from the delicious havens of Sicily; the de-
fence
glory of having made a defence which may be
considered as a prodigy ; whether in braving, at
Malta, the fury and the valour of Soliman, they
fixed ihe boundary of the Ottoman career; we see
them displaying, on all occasions, that heroic cou-
rage and skill which transform a handful of men
into a mighty army.
In order to keep alive this martial ardour, this
genius of battles and of victories, it was necessary
for them to maintain that observance of rules, those
forms of discipline, that austerity of manners, which
constitute the force and the permanency of all mi-
litary establishments. But the indolence, or rather
the dejection of the Mussulmans, was the epoch of
relaxation in the institutions of the Order. They
successively disused their exercises, frivolous in ap-
pearance, but attention to which had formed a nur-
sery of heroes; luxury assumed the place of the no-
ble simplicity of soldiers; idleness, and the corrup-
tive cohorts that march in her train, succeeded to the
activity, to the almost severity of warlike exertion ;
the hardiness of camps retired before the effemi-
Itacv of cities. The struggle between the knights
and Turks had now dwindled into a phantom,
of which some pitiful expeditions of corsairs kept
up the shadow ; the caravans or cruises of the gal-
leys, were now nothing but parties of pleasure to
and from the delicious havens of Sicily; the de-
fence