fray; but at the same time he sent messengers in all haste to Godfrey de Bouillon, as yet but a little way off, to summon him to their aid. Godfrey galloped up, and, with some fifty of his knights, preceding the rest of his army, was the first to throw himself into the midst of the Turks. Towards mid-day the whole of the first body arrived, with standards flying, with the sound of trumpets and with the shouting of warriors. Kilidge-Arslan and his troops fell back upon the heights whence they had descended. The crusaders, without taking breath, ascended in pursuit. The Turks saw themselves shut in by a forest of lances, and fled over wood and rock; and “two days afterwards they were still flying,” says Albert of Aix, “though none pursued them, unless it were God himself.” The victory of Doryleum opened the whole country to the crusaders, and they resumed their march towards Syria, paying their sole attention to not separating again.
It was not long before they had to grapple with other dangers against which bravery could do nothing. They were crossing, under a broiling sun, deserted tracts which their enemies had taken good care to ravage. Water and forage were not to be had; the men suffered intolerably from thirst; horses died by hundreds; at the head of their troops marched knights mounted on asses or oxen; their favorite amusement, the chase, became impossible for them; for their hawking-birds too—the falcons and gerfalcons they had brought with them—languished and died beneath the excessive heat. One incident obtained for the crusaders a momentary relief. The dogs which followed the army, prowling in all directions, one day returned with their paws and coats wet; they had, therefore, found water; and the soldiers set themselves to look for it, and, in fact, discovered a small river in a remote valley. They got water-drunk, and more than three hundred men, it is said, were affected by it and died.
On arriving in Pisidia, a country intersected by Water-courses, meadows, and woods, the army rested several days; but at that very point two of its most competent and most respected chiefs were very nearly taken from it. Count Raymond of Toulouse, who was also called Raymond of Saint- Gilles, fell so ill that the bishop of Orange was reading over him the prayers for the dying, when one of those present cried out that the count would assuredly live, for that the prayers of his patron saint, Gilles, had obtained for him a truce with death. And Raymond recovered. Godfrey de Bouillon, again, whilst riding in a forest, came upon a pilgrim attacked by a bear, and all but fallen a victim to the ferocious beast. The duke drew his sword and urged his horse against the bear, which, leaving the pilgrim, rushed upon the assailant. The frightened horse reared; Godfrey was thrown, and, according to one account, immediately remounted; but, according to another, he fell, on the contrary, together with his horse; however, he sustained a fearful struggle against the bear, and ultimately killed it by plunging his sword up to the hilt into its belly, says ‘William of Tyre, but with so great an effort, and after receiving so serious a wound, that his soldiers, hurrying up at the pilgrim’s report, found him stretched on the ground, covered with blood, and unable to rise, and carried him back to the camp, where he was, for several weeks, obliged to be carried about in a litter in the rear of the army.
Through all these perils they continued to advance, and they were approaching the heights of Taurus, the bulwark and gate of Syria, when a quarrel which arose between two of the principal crusader chiefs was like to seriously endanger the concord and strength of the army. Tancred, with his men, had entered Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, and had planted his flag there. Although later in his arrival, Baldwin, brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, claimed a right to the possession of the city, and had his flag set up instead of Tancred’s, which was thrown into a ditch. During several days the strife was fierce and even bloody; the soldiers of Baldwin were the more numerous, and those of Tancred considered their chief too gentle, and his bravery, so often proved, scarcely sufficed to form an excuse for his forbearance. Chiefs and soldiers, however, at last, saw the necessity for reconciliation, and made mutual promises to sink all animosity. On returning to the general camp, Tancred was received with marked favor; for the majority of the crusaders, being unconcerned in the quarrel at Tarsus, liked him for his bravery and for his gentleness equally. Baldwin, on the contrary, was much blamed, even by his brother Godfrey; but he was far more ambitious on his own account than devoted to the common cause. He had often heard tell of Armenia and Mesopotamia, their riches and the large number of Christians living there, almost equally independent of Greeks and Turks; and, in the hope of finding there a chance of greatly improving his personal fortunes, he left the army of the crusaders at Maresa, on the very eve of the day on which the chiefs came to the decision that no one should for the future move away from the flag, and taking with him a weak detachment of two hundred horse and one thousand or twelve hundred foot, marched towards Armenia. His name and his presence soon made a stir there; and he got hold of two little towns which received him eagerly. Edessa, the capital of Armenia and metropolis of Mesopotamia, was peopled by Christians; and a Greek governor, sent from Constantinople by the emperor, lived there, on payment of a tribute to the Turks. Internal dissensions and the fear ever inspired by the vicinity of the Turks kept the city in a state of lively agitation; and bishop, people, and Greek governor, all appealed to Baldwin. He presented himself before Edessa with merely a hundred horsemen, having left the remainder of his forces in garrison at the town he had already occupied. All the population came to meet him, bearing branches of olive and singing chants in honor of their deliverer. But it was not long before outbreaks and alarms began again; and Baldwin looked on at then, waiting for power to be offered him. Still there was no advance; the Greek governor continued where be was; and Baldwin muttered threats of his departure. The popular disquietude was extreme; and the Greek governor, old and detested as he was, thought to smooth all by adopting the Latin chief and making him his heir. This, however, caused but a short respite; Baldwin left the governor to be massacred in a fresh outbreak; the people came and offered him the government, and he became Prince of Edessa, and, ere long, of all the neighboring country, without thinking any more of Jerusalem, of which, nevertheless, he was destined at no distant day to be king.
Whilst Baldwin was thus acquiring, for himself and himself alone, the first Latin principality belonging to the crusaders in the East, his brother Godfrey and the main Christian army were crossing the chain of Taurus and arriving before Antioch, the capital of Syria. Great was the fame, with Pagans and Christians, of this city; its site, the beauty of its climate, the fertility of its land, its fish-abounding lake, its river of Orontes, its fountain of Daphne, its festivals, and its morals, had made it, under the Roman empire, a brilliant and favorite abode. At the same time, it was there that the disciples of Jesus had assumed the name of Christians, and that St. Paul had begun his heroic life as preacher and as missionary. It was absolutely necessary that the crusaders should take Antioch; but the difficulty of the conquest was equal to the importance. The city was well fortified and provided with a strong citadel; the Turks had been in possession of it for fourteen years; and its governor Accien or Baghisian (Yagui-Sian, or brother of black, according to Oriental historians), appointed by the sultan of Persia, Malekschah, was shut up in it with seven thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. The first attacks of the Christians failed; and they had the prospect of a long siege. At the outset their situation had been easy and pleasant; they encountered no hostility from the country-people, who were intimidated or indifferent; they came and paid visits to the camp, and admitted the crusaders to their markets; the harvests, which were hardly finished, had been abundant: “the grapes,” says Guibert of Nogent, “were still hanging on the branches of the vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were laden with fruit.” These facilities of existence, the softness of the climate, the pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly pleasure and partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusaders irregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils and reverses. The Turks profited thereby to make sallies, which threw the camp into confusion and cost the lives of crusaders surprised or scattered about. Winter came; provisions grew scarce, and had to be sought at a greater distance and at greater peril; and living ceased to be agreeable or easy. Disquietude, doubts concerning the success of the enterprise, fatigue and discouragement made way amongst the army; and men who were believed to be proved, Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, on account of his mighty battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself, “who had never learned,” says Robert the monk, “to endure such plaguy hunger,” left the camp and deserted the banner of the cross, “that there might be seen, in the words of the Apocalypse, even the stars falling