stated at three hundred thousand men. Yet the myriads that survived, that marched, that pressed forwards on the holy pilgrimage, were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne: ^76 the images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had seen and heard; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims, that Europe was loosened from its foundations, and hurled against Asia. The ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labor under the same doubt of a vague and indefinite magnitude; but I am inclined to believe, that a larger number has never been contained within the lines of a single camp, than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their arms, have been already displayed. Of their troops the most numerous portion were natives of France: the Low Countries, the banks of the Rhine, and Apulia, sent a powerful reenforcement: some bands of adventurers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and England; ^77 and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or Scotland ^78 issued some naked and savage fanatics, ferocious at home but unwarlike abroad. Had not superstition condemned the sacrilegious prudence of depriving the poorest or weakest Christian of the merit of the pilgrimage, the useless crowd, with mouths but without hands, might have been stationed in the Greek empire, till their companions had opened and secured the way of the Lord. A small remnant of the pilgrims, who passed the Bosphorus, was permitted to visit the holy sepulchre. Their northern constitution was scorched by the rays, and infected by the vapors, of a Syrian sun. They consumed, with heedless prodigality, their stores of water and provision: their numbers exhausted the inland country: the sea was remote, the Greeks were unfriendly, and the Christians of every sect fled before the voracious and cruel rapine of their brethren. In the dire necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives. Among the Turks and Saracens, the idolaters of Europe were rendered more odious by the name and reputation of Cannibals; the spies, who introduced themselves into the kitchen of Bohemond, were shown several human bodies turning on the spit: and the artful Norman encouraged a report, which increased at the same time the abhorrence and the terror of the infidels. ^79
[Footnote 73: There is some diversity on the numbers of his army; but no authority can be compared with that of Ptolemy, who states it at five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot, (see Usher's Annales, p 152.)]
[Footnote 74: Fulcher. Carnotensis, p. 387. He enumerates nineteen nations of different names and languages, (p. 389;) but I do not clearly apprehend his difference between the Franci and Galli, Itali and Apuli. Elsewhere (p. 385) he contemptuously brands the deserters.]
[Footnote 75: Guibert, p. 556. Yet even his gentle opposition implies an immense multitude. By Urban II., in the fervor of his zeal, it is only rated at 300,000 pilgrims, (epist. xvi. Concil. tom. xii. p. 731.)]
[Footnote 76: Alexias, l. x. p. 283, 305. Her fastidious delicacy complains of their strange and inarticulate names; and indeed there is scarcely one that she has not contrived to disfigure with the proud ignorance so dear and familiar to a polished people. I shall select only one example, Sangeles, for the count of St. Giles.]
[Footnote 77: William of Malmsbury (who wrote about the year 1130) has inserted in his history (l. iv. p. 130-154) a narrative of the first crusade: but I wish that, instead of listening to the tenue murmur which had passed the British ocean, (p. 143,) he had confined himself to the numbers, families, and adventures of his countrymen. I find in Dugdale, that an English Norman, Stephen earl of Albemarle and Holdernesse, led the rear-guard with Duke Robert, at the battle of Antioch, (Baronage, part i. p. 61.)]
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