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To this message a decisive refusal was returned, and Abu ‘Obeidah, in accordance with his threat, marched upon Jerusalem and besieged the town. The Christians, after several unsuccessful sallies, finding themselves reduced to great straits by the protracted siege, made overtures for capitulation, but refused to treat with any but the caliph himself. Having exacted a solemn oath from them that they would hold to the proposed conditions in case of his sovereign’s arrival, the general sent a message to ‘Omar, inviting him to leave Medína, and receive in person the capitulation of the town. The messengers from Abu ‘Obeidah’s camp were accompanied by some representatives of the Christian community, and the latter were much astonished at the stern simplicity and comparative retirement in which the caliph was living, which but ill accorded with their previously conceived ideas of the great monarch who had conquered the whole of Arabia and Syria, and made even the Emperors of Greece and Persia to tremble on their thrones. The meeting between the caliph and his victorious general was still further calculated to impress them. ‘Omar was mounted on a camel, and attired in simple Bedawí costume—a sheepskin cloak, and coarse cotton shirt; Abu ‘Obeidah was mounted on a small she-camel, an ‘abba’ or mantle of haircloth, folded over the saddle, and a rude halter of twisted hair forming her only trappings; he wore his armour, and carried his bow slung across his shoulder. Abu ‘Obeidah, dismounting from his beast, approached the caliph in a respectful attitude; but the latter dismounting almost at the same moment, stooped to kiss his general’s feet, whereupon there ensued a contest of humility, which was only put an end to by the two great men mutually consenting to embrace after the usual fashion of Arab sheikhs when meeting upon equal terms. A story of ‘Omar’s compensating a man for some grapes which his followers had heedlessly plucked as they came in from their thirsty ride, and several other instances of his great integrity and unassuming manners, are related by the Arab historians. No doubt these incidents were, to some extent, the offspring of “the pride that apes humility;” yet the Muslim sovereign really seems to have possessed some good and amiable qualities.