volume one

242 HiSTOET or the ckusades.
terrified crowd stood motionless on the field of battle, and
the sword, to employ the expression of a contemporary,*
mowed them down lilve the grass of the field. Some cast
themselves on the ground, and concealed themselves among
heaps of slain ; whilst others plunged into caverns, or scrambled
up rocks or trees, where they were shot down with
arrows, like birds.f Afdhal, who did not believe himself to
be in safety in Ascalon, embarked on board a fleet which had
arrived from Egypt. Towards the middle of the contest, all
the Eg^'ptian vessels which were near the shore spread their
sails, and gained the open sea. From that moment no hope
of safety remained for the scattered army of these infidels,
who were, as they had said, to deliver the East, and whose
multitude was so great, that, according to the expression of
old historians, God alone knew the number of them. J
Such was this battle, whose prodigies poetry has taken
delight in celebrating, but which was, in reality, nothing but
an easy victory for the Christians, in which fanaticism even
had not the least share. On this day the presence of celestial
legions did not animate the battalions of the Crusaders,
and the martyrs St. George and St. Demetrius, whom they
always believed they saw in great perils, had no occasion to
be present in this fight. The Christians must have learnt
from this rencontre that their new adversaries were much
less to be dreaded than the Turks. The Egyptian army was
composed of many difierent nations, which were divided
among themselves ; the greater part of the Mussulman
troops had been le^-ied in haste, and fought for the first time.
The army of the Crusaders, on the contrary, had been proved
by manv victories, and their leaders were as skilful as thev
were brave. The bold resolution that Godfrey had taken of
* Eos tanquam segetem in transverse gladii secabant. Bald. lib. iv.
t Subito sagitta transfigebant, et quasi aves volatili telo percussas, ab
ipsis arborum ramis moribimdos humi procumbere cogebant. Alb. Aq.
lib. V. cap. 49.
X Anna Comnena, who speaks of the battle of Ascalon, says that the
Franks were at first conquerors, and that they were afterwards attacked
and beaten near Ramla. She mentions Baldwin, who was not then in
Palestine, and did not come thither till after the death of Godfrey. It is
easy to see that she confounds, as often happens with her, two different
periods, that of the battle of Ascalon and that of the battle of Ramla,
which was fought three years after, in the reign of Baldwin I.
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