volume one

454! HISTORY OF THE CEUSADES.
nouglit the power of an oath, on the one side or the other.
Saladin himself never entertained an idea that Guy would
keep his word ; and if he consented to liberate him, it was
doubtless from the fear that a more able prince would be
chosen in his place, and from the hope that his presence
would bring discord among the Christians.
Guy was scarcely released from captivity, when he made
his bishops annul the oath he had taken, and sought earnestly
for an opportunity of reconstructing
which fortune had for a moment placed him.
a throne upon
He presented
himself in vain before Tyre ; that city had given itself up to
Conrad, and would not ackiiowledge as king a prince who
had not been able to defend his own states. The king of
Jerusalem wandered for a long time about his own kingdom,
accompanied by a few faithful attendants, and at length
resolved to undertake some enterprise that should draw
attention, and unite under his banners the warriors who
flocked from all parts of Europe to the assistance of the
Holy Land.
Guy laid siege to Ptolemais, which had surrendered to
Saladin a few days after the battle of Tiberias. This city,
which historians call by turns Acca, Accon, and Acre, was
built at the western extremity of a vast plain. The Mediterranean
bathed its walls ; it attracted, by the commodiousness
of its port, the navigators of Europe and Asia, and
deserved to reign over the seas with the city of Tyre, which
was situated not far from it. Deep ditches surrounded the
walls on the land side ; and, at equal distances, formidable
towers had been built, among which was conspicuous The
Cursed Tower, which dominated over the city and the plain.
A dyke, built of stone, closed the part towards the south,
terminated by a fortress,
the midst of the waves.
erected upon an isolated rock in
The plain of Ptolema'is is boimded on the north by Mount
Saron, which the Latins called Scala Tyrorum,—the ladders of
the T^-rians ; on the east by the mountains of Galilee ; and
on the south by Mount Carmel, which stretches into the
sea. The plain is intersected towards the city by two hills,
—the Turon, or the Mountain of the Worshipper, and the
Mahameria, or the Hill of the Prophet. Several rivers or
torrents descend from Mount Saron or from the mountains