While they were considering which road was the easiest for their march to Jerusalem, the Crusaders received a deputation from a Christian people, said to be sixty thousand in number, living in the mountains of Lebanus. They offered their services as guides, and pointed out that there were three roads: the first by way of Damascus, level and plain, and always abounding in provisions; the second over Mount Lebanon, safe from any enemy, and also full of provisions, but difficult for beasts of burden; and the third by the sea-shore, abounding in defiles, where “fifty Mussulmans would be able, if they pleased, to stop the whole of mankind.” “But,” said these Christians, “if you are of a verity that nation which is to overcome Jerusalem, you must pass along the sea-shore, however difficult that road may appear, _according to the Gospel of St. Peter_. Your way, such as you have made it, and such as you must make it, is all laid down in that Gospel which we possess.”
What was this Gospel? or is it only one of the credulous stories of Raymond d’Agiles?
The army which sat down before Jerusalem numbered about twenty thousand fighting men, and an equal number of camp followers, old men, women, and children. This was the miserable remnant of that magnificent army of six hundred thousand, with which Godfrey had taken Nicæa and punished the massacre of Walter and his rabble. Where were all the rest? The road was strewn with their bones. Across the thirsty deserts of Asia Minor, on the plain of Dorylæum, and on the slopes and passes of Taurus, the Crusaders’ bodies lay unburied, while before and within Antioch, the city of disasters, thousands upon thousands were thrown into the river or lay in unhallowed soil. But they were not all killed. Many had returned home, among whom were Hugh le Grand and Stephen of Blois; many had left the main body and gone off in free-handed expeditions of their own, to join Baldwin and others. Thus we have heard of Wolf, the Burgundian conqueror of Adana. Presently we find that Guymer the pirate of Boulogne, who joined Baldwin at Tarsus, must have left him again, and returned to his piratical ways, for we find him in prison at Tripoli; he was delivered up by the governor of Tripoli to the Christians, after which he appears no more. Then some had been taken prisoners, and purchased their lives by apostacy, like Rinaldo the Italian. And those of the captive women who were yet young were dragging out their lives in the Turkish harems. Probably the boys, too, were spared, and those who were young enough to forget their Christian blood brought up to be soldiers of the Crescent.
