daughter of the Emir Bargug, who gave him a free hand, so that at the age of thirty-three he became really the governor of Egypt (a.d. 868). Then he began to live in kingly state. Tulun was no friend to the Christians. He ruthlessly levelled the Christian graves for a new town between Fustât and the Mokattam hills. In the year 878 he renounced allegiance to the caliph, took Damascus, captured and sacked Antioch. This was the first mutiny in Egypt since the Arab conquest. Although Tulun was a fierce and ruthless destroyer when on the warpath, he revived the power of Egypt in the East, and beautified Cairo with some of the finest work of Saracenic architecture. He died of the fatigues of his tremendous life when on his travels, in the year 884, before he was fifty years of age.
These were dark times for the Copts. The Melchite party had come into temporary favour and the national Church was under a cloud, when a deacon, maintaining that he had been wrongly treated by Chenouda, appealed to the governor Ahmed, who thereupon summoned all the Coptic bishops to his presence. Chenouda had gone into hiding, but he was discovered and dragged out. The bishops were stripped of their episcopal robes, and, clad as simple monks, led through the streets on the backs of asses without saddles amidst the jeers of the mob. The patriarch was flung into a dungeon and kept there for thirty days, in the hope that he would pay a handsome ransom, which, however, was not forthcoming. This incident ended strangely. The accusing deacon professed penitence, and Chenouda granted him absolution; but the penitent soon proved his insincerity by bringing various false accusations against Christians. When his villainy was discovered the emir had him scourged almost to death. Chenouda died in or about the year 881, after a patriarchate full of trouble and vexation. Great as was his influence among his own people, he seems to have been a weak, timorous man, unsuited to the rough times in which his lot was cast. But Egypt was not the soil to bring
