402 JOINVILLE'S MEMOIRS OP SAINT LOUIS IX . [JPT. II. wood. What falls into the river is brought down with it, and collected by merchants, who sell it to us by weight I heard in the country of Babylon, that the sultan had frequently attempted to learn whence this river came, by sending experienced persons to follow the course of i t They carried with them a bread called biscuit, for they would not have found any on their route, and on their return reported, that they had followed the course of the river until they came to a large mountain of perpendicular rocks, which it was impossible to climb, and over these rocks fell the river. It seemed to them, that on the top of this mountain were many trees ; and they said they had seen there many strange wild beasts, such as lions, serpents, elephants, and other sorts, which came to gaze at them as they ascended the river. These travellers, not daring to advance further, returned .to the sultan. Now, to pursue my subject, this river, on entering Egypt, spreads its branches over the plain: one of them flows to Damietta, another to Alexandria, another to Tunis, and another to Rexi. To this branch which runs by Rexi, the king of France marched with his whole army, and encamped between the Damietta branch and that of Rexi.* W e found the sultan encamped with his entire force on the opposite bank of the Rexi branch, to prevent and oppose our passage. It was easy for him to do this, for none of us could have crossed unless we had stripped ourselves naked, as there were no other means to pass. The king determined to have a causeway made, to enable him to pass over to the Saracens ; and to guard those employed on it, he had built two beffrois,t called chcucka * All the historians who relate this passage call the river Thanis, which is the name of one of the branches of the NUe that flows by a place of the same name, and is called at this day Tanet or Tenez. It will therefore be necessary to correct our author, and make it Tanis instead of Tunis. f The beffroy was a warlike machine in the form of a tower, made of wood, having different stories, which was drawn near to the walls of a town, and the stories filled with a proper number of soldiers, who shot from their bows and cross-bows over the walls, against the defenders of the place. These machines were usually moved on four wheels, and to prevent the Greek fire from hurting them, they were covered with boiled horse or bollock sitine. Froissart, in his first volume, chap. 108, thus describes the bef.