22 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

for the loss of the Holy City, and took arms; theirwomen, too. A Christian prisoner told the Moslemsthat his mother had no other child, and senthim on the crusade, and sold her house to equiphim. 1

Saladin, in a letter, tells the caliph that thecrusaders are not individuals, but the whole bodyof Franks, able to bear arms. That they come byevery way; easy and difficult, by land, by sea ;from the remotest regions, as well as the nearer.

Yet one division of the third crusade had alreadyperished. If the Germans had arrived, it mighthave been written: “ Here once reigned the Mussul-man.t” 2 Some residue of Frederick’s grand armyreached Acre. It had been easy to impede them;but when God wishes a thing , he prepares the causes .*That remnant of a division of Franks got close toAcre on the 12th of August, 1189, and the soldan,who had advanced to cut them off, but missed theroad, some day later. Truth is, the Duke ofSuabia, Frederick I.’s son, and the rest of his army,had been engaged to remain on the Orontes, not todiscourage the Christians by their haggard sight—living skeletons as they were, of no use to thecrusaders; on the contrary, very dangerous. But a

1 Arab. Chron, 242. 2 Id., 243.

3 Id., 244.