he place:
his garrison was composed of six or seven thousand horse, and fifteen
or twenty thousand foot: one hundred thousand Moslems are said to have
fallen by the sword; and their numbers were probably inferior to the
Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, who had been no more than fourteen
years the slaves of the house of Seljuk. From the remains of a solid and
stately wall, it appears to have arisen to the height of threescore feet
in the valleys; and wherever less art and labor had been applied, the
ground was supposed to be defended by the river, the morass, and the
mountains. Notwithstanding these fortifications, the city had been
repeatedly taken by the Persians, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Turks;
so large a circuit must have yielded many pervious points of attack; and
in a siege that was formed about the middle of October, the vigor of
the execution could alone justify the boldness of the attempt. Whatever
strength and valor could perform in the field was abundantly discharged
by the champions of the cross: in the frequent occasions of sallies,
of forage, of the attack and defence of convoys, they were often
victorious; and we can only complain, that their exploits are sometimes
enlarged beyond the scale of probability and truth. The sword of Godfrey
divided a Turk from the shoulder to the haunch; and one half of the
infidel fell to the ground, while the other was transported by his horse
to the city gate. As Robert of Normandy rode against his antagonist,
"I devote thy head," he piously exclaimed, "to the daemons of hell;" and
that head was instantly cloven to the breast by the resistless stroke of
his descending falchion. But the reality or the report of such gigantic
prowess must have taught the Moslems to keep within their walls: and
against those walls of earth or stone, the sword and the lance were
unavailing weapons. In the slow and successive labors of a siege, the
crusaders were supine and ignorant, without skill to contrive, or money
to purchase, or industry to use, the artificial engines and implements
of assault. In the conquest of Nice, they had been powerfully assisted
by the wealth and knowledge of the Greek emperor: his absence was poorly
supplied by some Genoese and Pisan vessels, that were attracted by
religion or trade to the coast of Syria: the stores were scanty, the
return precarious, and the communication difficult and dangerous.
Indolence or weakness had prevented the Franks from investing the