The crusaders; or, Scenes, events, and characters, from the times of the crusades . quit the city for a short time, and en-deavour to perform some action which might raise hischaracter in the eyes of the people. Accordingly, on theseventh day after his arrival, toward the end of Novem-ber he put himself at the head of one hundred and fiftyknights and five hundred foot-men, and appeared beforethe gates of Ascalon. The Ascalonites came forth tobattle, and he was glad to retire from before them, andto turn his arms against the plundering Arabs, who lurkedin the caverns between Bamla and Jerusalem
The crusaders; or, Scenes, events, and characters, from the times of the crusades . quit the city for a short time, and en-deavour to perform some action which might raise hischaracter in the eyes of the people. Accordingly, on theseventh day after his arrival, toward the end of Novem-ber he put himself at the head of one hundred and fiftyknights and five hundred foot-men, and appeared beforethe gates of Ascalon. The Ascalonites came forth tobattle, and he was glad to retire from before them, andto turn his arms against the plundering Arabs, who lurkedin the caverns between Bamla and Jerusalem. A firewas kindled at the mouth of the robbers den, and thesmoke soon forced two of them to come forth and imploremercy. Baldwin treated them kindly, gave them pre-sents, and then made one of them go back to try andpersuade his companions to surrender. While he wasaway, the Christians cut off the head of him who other now came out with ten of his comrades, ofwhom one was sent back into the cave, and the rest putto death. In this manner the robbers, to the number of. i2 1100.] CORONATION OF BALDWIN. 173 two hundred and thirty were decoyed out and slain, andthen, by means of smoke, their wives and children wereforced to come out and surrender. Baldwin and his men now directed their course toHebron. We passed, says Eulcher of Chartres, Bald-wins chaplain,—we passed the mountains which are theburial-place of the patriarchs, where gloriously repose thebodies of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, and Bebecca; wethen came into the valley where of old time stood theguilty cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God de-stroyed in his wrath, and in which now is the Lake As-phaltides, whose waters are so bitter, that birds and otheranimals cannot drink of them, nor fish live in them, whenceit is called the Dead Sea. I myself made trial of the bit-terness of its waters, for I got down from my mule totaste them, and found them more bitter than thence, they came t
Size: 1250px × 1999px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade185, booksubjectcrusades, bookyear1859
