volume one

HISTOEY OF THE CllUSADES. 113
Isaiiria, and all the country as far as Mount Taurus, were
given up to pillage, and entirely laid waste.
"When the Crusaders resumed their march, they determined
not to separate again, as they had done on entering
Phrygia. This resolution certainly rendered them safe from
surprise or hostile attack, but it exposed so numerous an
army to the risk of perishing b}^ famine and misery in a
country devastated bv the Turks.* The Christians, who
marched without forethought, and were never provisioned
for more than a few days, were not long before they felt the
want of food. They found nothing on their route but
deserted fields, and soon had no other subsistence but the
roots of wild plants and the ears of corn which had escaped
the ravages of the Saracens. By far the greater number of
the horses of the army perished for want of water and
forage.
Most of the knights, who were accustomed to look with
contempt on foot-soldiers, were obliged, like them, to march
on foot, and carry their arms, the weight of which was
enough to exhaust them. The Christian army presented a
strange spectacle—knights were seen mounted on asses and
oxen, advancing at the head of their companies ; rams,
goats, pigs, dogs, every anim^al they could meet with, was
loaded with baggage, which, for the most part, was left
abandoned on the roads.f
The Crusaders then traversed that part of Phrygia which
the ancients called "burning Phrygia." AVhen their army
arrived in the country of Sauria,;]: they endured all the horrors
of thirst, of which the most robust soldiers could not
resist the terrible power. We read in William of Tyre,
that five hundred perished in one day. Historians say that
women were seen giving premature birth to their ofl:spring
in the midst of burning and open fields ; whilst others, in
* I have madp earnest researches to discover by vv^hat means the Christian
army was provisioned, and I can learn nothing beyond the fact that
the Crusaders carried hand-mills with them.
t Tunc autem vcre vel riderefis, vel forsiian pietate lachrymaremini,
cum miiltis riostrum jumentis egentes, verveces, capras, sues, canes, de
rebus stiis onerabant. Equites etiam supra boves cum amis suis
interdum scandebant.—Ful. Cam. apud Bougais, p. 589.
t The Isauria trachea of the ancients.