was permitted to visit the holy sepulchre. Their norther constitution was scorched by the rays, and infected by the vapors of a Syrian sun. They consumed, with heedless prodigality, their stores of water and provision: their num bers exhausted the inland country: the sea was remote, the Greeks were unfriendly, and the Christians of every sect fled before the voracious and cruel rapine of their brethren. In the dire necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among the Turks and Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by the name and reputation of Cannibals; the spies, who introduced themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond, were shown several human bodies turning on the spit and the artful Norman encouraged a report, which increased at the same time the abhorrence and the terror of the infidels.79 I have expatiated with pleasure on the first steps of the crusaders, as they paint the manners and character of Europe: but I shall abridge the tedious and uniform narrative of their blind achievements, which were performed by strength and are described by ignorance. From their first station in the neighborhood of Nicomedia, they advanced in successive divisions; passed the contracted limit of the Greek empire; opened a road through the hills, and commenced, by the siege of his capital, their pious warfare against the Turkish sultan. His kingdom of Roum extended from the Hellespont to the confines of Syria, and barred the pilgrimage of Jerusalem: his name was Kilidge-Arslan, or Soliman,80 of the race of Seljuk, and son of the first conqueror; and in the defence of 79 This cannibal hunger, sometimes real, more frequently an artifice or a lie, may be found in Anna Comnena, (Alexias, 1. x. p. 288,) Guibert, (p. 546,) Radulph. Cadom., (c. 97.) The stratagem is related by the author of the Gesta Francorum, the monk Robert Baldric, and Raymond des Agiles, in the siege and famine of Antioch. 80 His Mussulman appellation of Soliman is used by the Latins, and his character is highly embellished by Tasso. His Turkish name of Kilidge-Arslan (A. H. 485—500, A. D. 1192—1206. See De Guignes' Tables, tom. i. p. 245) is employed by the Orientals, and with some corruption by the Greeks; but little more than his name can be found in the Mahometan writers, who are dry and sulky on the subject of the first crusade, (De Guignes, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 10 -30.)* • See note, page 556 Soliman and Kilidge-Arslan were father and fon. M. a land which the Turks considered as their own, he deserved the praise of his enemies, by whom alone he is known to pos terity. Yielding to the first impulse of the torrent, he deposited his family and treasure in Nice; retired to the mountains with fifty thousand horse; and twice descended to assault the camps or quarters of the Christian besiegers, which formed an imperfect circle of above six miles. The lefty and solid walls of Nice were covered by a deep ditch, and flanked by three hundred and seventy towers; and on the verge of Christendom, the Moslems were trained in arms, and inflamed by religion. Before this city, the French princes occupied their stations, and prosecuted their attacks without correspondence or subordination: emulation prompted their valor; but their valor was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy and civil discord. In the siege of Nice, the arts and engines of antiquity were employed by the Latins; the mine and the battering-ram, the tortoise, and the belfrey or movable turret, artificial fire, and the catapult and balist, the sling, and the crossbow for the casting of stones and darts.81 In the space of seven weeks much labor and blood were expended, and some progress, especially by Coun Raymond, was made on the side of the besiegers. But the Turks could protract their resistance and secure their escape, as long as they were masters of the Lake 82 Ascanius, which stretches several miles to the westward of the city. The means of conquest were supplied by the prudence and industry of Alexius; a great number of boats was transported on sledges from the sea to the lake; they were filled with the most dexterous of his archers; the flight of the sultana was intercepted; Nice was invested by land and water; and a Greek emissary persuaded the inhabitants to accept his mas ter's protection, and to save themselves, by a timely surren der, from the rage of the sav: ges of Europe. In the moment of victory, or at least of hope, the crusaders, thirsting for blood and plunder, were awed by the Imperial banner that 1 On the fortifications, engines, and sieges of the middle ages, sce Muratori, (Antiquitat. Italiæ, tom. ii. dissert. xxvi. p. 452–524.) The belfredus, from whence our belfrey, was the movable tower of the ancients, (Ducange, tom. i. p. 608.) I cannot forbear remarking the resemblance between the siege and lake of Nice, with the operations of Hernan Cortez before Mexico See Dr. Robertson, History of America, 1. v. : streamed from the citadel; and Alexius guarded with jea. ous vigilance this important conquest. The murmurs of the chiefs were stifled by honor or interest; and after a halt of nine days, they directed their march towards Phrygia under the guidance of a Greek general, whom hey suspected of a secret connivance with the sultan. The consort and the principal servants of Soliman had been honorably restored without ransom; and the emperor's generosity to the miscreants 83 was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause. Soliman was rather provoked than dismayed by the loss of his capital he admonished his subjects and allies of this strange invasion of the Western Barbarians the Turkish emirs obeyed the call of loyalty or religion; the Turkman hordes encamped round his standard; and his whole force is loosely stated by the Christians at two hundred, or even three hundred and sixty thousand horse. Yet he patiently waited till they had left behind them the sea and the Greek frontier; and hovering on the flanks, observed their careless and confident progress in two columns beyond the view of each other Some miles before they could reach Dorylæum in Phrygia the left, and least numerous, division was surprised, and at tacked, and almost oppressed, by the Turkish cavalry.84 The heat of the weather, the clouds of arrows, and the barbarous onset, overwhelmed the crusaders; they lost their order and confidence, and the fainting fight was sustained by the personal valor, rather than by the military conduct, of Bohemond, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. They were revived by the welcome banners of Duke Godfrey, who flew to their succor, with the count of Vermandois, and sixty thousand horse; and was followed by Raymond of Tholouse, the bishop 83 Mécréant, a word invented by the French crusaders, and confined in that language to its primitive sense. It should seem, that the zeal of our ancestors boiled higher, and that they branded every unbeliever as a rascal. A similar prejudice still lurks in the minds of many who think themselves Christians. 4 Baronius has produced a very doubtful letter to his brother Roger, (A. D. 1098, No. 15.) The enemies consisted of Medes, Persians, Chaldeans: be it so. The first attak was cum nostro incommodo; true and tender. But why Godfrey of Bouillon and Hugh brothers! Tancred is styled filius; of whom? Certainly not of Roger, nor of Bohemond. • Anna Comnena calls it öpäμs rès rapadosids. -- M. of Puy, and the remainder of the sacred army. Without moment's pause, they formed in new order, and advanced to a second battle. They were received with equal resolution ; and, in their common disdain for the unwarlike people of Greece and Asia, it was confessed on both sides, that the Turks and the Franks were the only nations entitled to the appellation of soldiers. Their encounter was varied, and balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre; of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown to the Orientals.86 As long as the horses were fresh, and the quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; and four thousand Christians were pierced by the Turkish arrows. In the evening, swiftness yielded to strength: on either side, the numbers were equal, or at least as great as any ground could hold, or any generals could manage; but in turning the hills, the last division of Raymond and his provincials was led, perhaps without design, on the rear of an exhausted enemy; and the long contest was determined. Besides a nameless and unaccounted multitude, three thousand Pagan knights were slain in the battle and pursuit; the camp of Soliman was pillaged; and in the variety of precious spoil, the curiosity of the Latins was amused with foreign arms and apparel, and the new aspect of dromedaries and camels. The importance of the victory was proved by the hasty retreat of the sultan reserving ten thousand guards of the relics of his army, Soliman evacuated the kingdom of Roum, and hastened to implore the aid, and kindle the resentment, of his Eastern brethren. In a march of five hundred miles, the crusaders traversed the Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted towns, without find ing either a friend or an enemy. The geographer 87 may 85 Verumtamen dicunt se esse de Francorum generatione; et quia nullus homo naturaliter debet esse miles nisi Franci et Turci, (Gesta Francorum, p. 7.) The same community of blood and valor is attested by Archbishop Baldric, (p. 99.) 86 Balista, Balestra, Arbalestre. See Muratori, Antiq. tom. ii. p. 517 -524. Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. i. p. 531, 532. In the time of Anna Comnena, this weapon, which she describes under the name of teangra, was unknown in the East, (l. x. p. 291.) By a humane inconsistency, the pope strove to prohibit it in Christian wars. The curious reader may compare the classic learning of Cellarius trace the position of Dorylæum, Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Archelais, and Germanicia, and may compare those classic appellations with the modern names of Eskishehr the old city, Akshehr the white city, Cogni, Erekli, and Marash. As the pilgrims passed over a desert, where a draught of water is exchanged for silver, they were tormented by intolerable thirst; and on the banks of the first rivulet, their haste and intemperance were still more pernicious to the disorderly throng. They climbed with toil and danger the steep and slippery sides of Mount Taurus; many of the soldiers cast away their arms to secure their footsteps; and had not terror preceded their van, the long and trembling file might have been driven down the precipice by a handful of resolute enemies. Two of their most respectable chiefs, the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, were carried in litters: Raymond was raised, as it is said by miracle, from a hopeLess malady; and Godfrey had been torn by a bear, as he pursued that rough and perilous chase in the mountains of Pisidia. To improve the general consternation, the cousin of Bohe mond and the brother of Godfrey were detached from the main army with their respective squadrons of five, and of seven, hundred knights. They overran in a rapid career the hills and sea-coast of Cilicia, from Cogui to the Syrian gates: the Norman standard was first planted on the walls of Tarsus and Malmistra; but the proud injustice of Baldwin at length provoked the patient and generous Italian; and they turned their consecrated swords against each other in a private and profane quarrel. Honor was the motive, and fame the reward, of Tancred; but fortune smiled on the more selfish enterprise of his rival.88 He was called to the assistance of and the geographical science of D'Anville. William of Tyre is the only historian of the crusades who has any knowledge of antiquity; and M. Otter trod almost in the footsteps of the Franks from Contantinople to Antioch, (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. i. p. 35 -88.)* 88 This detached conquest of Edessa is best represented by Falsherius Carnotensis, or of Chartres, (in the collections of Bongarsius, Duchesne, and Martenne,) the valiant chaplain of Count Baldwin, (Esprit des Croisades, tom. i. p. 13, 14.) In the disputes of that The journey of Col. Macdonald Kinneir in Asia Minor throws consid arable light on the geography of this march of the crusaders. — M. |