for power to be offered
him. Still there was no advance; the Greek governor continued where be
was; and Baldwin muttered threats of his departure. The popular
disquietude was extreme; and the Greek governor, old and detested as he
was, thought to smooth all by adopting the Latin chief and making him his
heir. This, however, caused but a short respite; Baldwin left the
governor to be massacred in a fresh outbreak; the people came and offered
him the government, and he became Prince of Edessa, and, ere long, of all
the neighboring country, without thinking any more of Jerusalem, of
which, nevertheless, he was destined at no distant day to be king.

Whilst Baldwin was thus acquiring, for himself and himself alone, the
first Latin principality belonging to the crusaders in the East, his
brother Godfrey and the main Christian army were crossing the chain of
Taurus and arriving before Antioch, the capital of Syria. Great was the
fame, with Pagans and Christians, of this city; its site, the beauty of
its climate, the fertility of its land, its fish-abounding lake, its
river of Orontes, its fountain of Daphne, its festivals, and its morals,
had made it, under the Roman empire, a brilliant and favorite abode. At
the same time, it was there that the disciples of Jesus had assumed the
name of Christians, and that St. Paul had begun his heroic life as
preacher and as missionary. It was absolutely necessary that the
crusaders should take Antioch; but the difficulty of the conquest was
equal to the importance. The city was well fortified and provided with
a strong citadel; the Turks had been in possession of it for fourteen
years; and its governor Accien or Baghisian (_Yagui-Sian_, or _brother of
black_, according to Oriental historians), appointed by the sultan of
Persia, Malekschah, was shut up in it with seven thousand horse and
twenty thousand foot. The first attacks of the Christians failed; and
they had the prospect of a long siege. At the outset their situation had
been easy and pleasant; they encountered no hostility from the
country-people, who were intimidated or indifferent; they came and paid
visits to the camp, and admitted the crusaders to their markets; the
harvests, which were hardly finished, had been abundant: "the grapes,"
says Guibert of Nogent, "were still hanging on the branches of the
vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain shut up, not in
barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees wer