volume one

—
IITSTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 199
have much more astonished them was the strange remedy
for their bite which the inliabitants pointed out to them,
and Avhich without doubt must have seemed to them far more
a subject of scandal than a means of cure.*
The Christians, having still continued to march along the
coast, arrived before the walls of Accon, the ancient Ptolemais,
at the present day St. Jean d'Acre. The emir who
commanded in this city for the caliph of Egypt sent them
provisions, and promised to surrender as soon as they should
become masters of Jerusalem. The Crusaders, who had no
idea of attacking Ptolemais, received with joy the submission
and promises of the Egyptian emir ;
but chance soon made
them aware that he had no other intention but that of
getting them out of his territories, and raismg up enemies
against them in the countries they were about to pass
through. The Christian army, after having quitted the
country of Ptolemais, had advanced between the sea and
Mount Carmel, and were encamped near the port of Csesarea,
when a dove, which had escaped from the talons of a bird of
prey, fell lifeless among the soldiers. The bishop of Apt,
who chanced to pick up this bird, found under its wing a
* I at first thought that these serpents could be only the dipsada, or
fire-serpent. I communicated this opinion to M. Walckenaer, who with
reason had seen nothing in the reptiles of which Albert d'Aix speaks, but
the common ^rec/ro of Egypt {Lacerta gecko of Linnaeus), which Belon and
Hasselquits have found in great numbers in Syria, Judea, and Egypt.
Tills species is very venomous ; it resembles other species of the same
genus and of the genus stellion, which appear to be harmless, and are
found in France, Italy, Sardinia, and on all the coasts of the Mediterranean
Sea, where it is called larente, fareata, tarentola, &c. The opinion
of M. Walckenaer appears the morrt reasonable, from the two species of
serpents and vipers to which naturalists have given the name dipaada ;
the one, the Coluber dipsas of Linnaeus, which is the dipsada, properly
speaking, being only found in America ; the other, the black viper,
Coluber prcester of Linnfeu-:, appears peculiar to Europe, and is more
common in the north than in the south. We may venture to quote the
passage of Albert d'Aix in Latin, which speaks of the remedy advised by
the inhabitants of the country against the bite of the tarenta — Similiter
et aliam edocti sunt medicinam, ut vir percussus sine mora coiret cum
muliere, cum viro mulier, et sic ab omni tumore veneni liberaretur uterque.
Alb. Aq. lib. iv. cap. 40. The same historian speaks of another
remedy, which consisted in pressing strongly the place of the bite, to
prevent the communication of the venom with the other parts of the
system.
: