fifteen hundred knights.”  Raymond d’Agiles, chaplain to the count of Toulouse, reduces still further to twelve thousand the number of foot capable of bearing arms, and that of the knights to twelve or thirteen hundred.  This weak army was destitute of commissariat and the engines necessary for such a siege.  Before long it was a prey to the horrors of thirst.  “The neighborhood of Jerusalem,” says William of Tyre, “is arid; and it is only at a considerable distance that there are to be found rivulets, fountains, or wells of fresh water.  Even these springs had been filled up by the enemy a little before the arrival of our troops.  The crusaders issued from the camp secretly and in small detachments to look for water in all directions; and just when they believed they had found some hidden trickier, they saw themselves surrounded by a multitude of folks engaged in the same search; disputes forthwith arose amongst them, and they frequently came to blows.  Horses, mules, asses, and cattle of all kinds, consumed by heat and thirst, fell down and died; and their carcasses, left here and there about the camp, tainted the air with a pestilential smell.”  Wood, iron, and all the materials needful for the construction of siege machinery were as much to seek as water.  But a warlike and pious spirit made head against all.  Trees were felled at a great distance from Jerusalem; and scaling-towers were roughly constructed, as well as engines for hurling the stones which were with difficulty brought up within reach of the city.  “All ye who read this,” says Raymond d’Agiles, “think not that it was light labor; it was nigh a mile from the spot where the engines, all dismounted, had to be transported to that where they were remounted.”  The knights protected against the sallies of the besieged the workmen employed upon this work.  One day Tancred had gone alone to pray on the Mount of Olives and to gaze upon the holy city, when five Mussulmans sallied forth and went to attack him; he killed three of them, and the other two took to flight.  There was at one point of the city ramparts a ravine which had to be filled up to make an approach; and the count of Toulouse had proclamation made that be would give a denier to every one who would go and throw three stones into it.  In three days the ravine was filled up.  After four weeks of labor and preparation, the council of princes fixed a day for delivering the assault; but as there had been quarrels between several of the chiefs, and, notably, between the count of Toulouse and Tancred, it was resolved that before the grand attack they should all be reconciled at a general supplication, with solemn ceremonies, for divine aid.  After a strict fast, all the crusaders went forth armed from their quarters, and preceded by their priests, bare-footed and chanting psalms, they moved, in slow procession, round Jerusalem, halting at all places hallowed by some fact in sacred history, listening to the discourses of their priests, and