Saladin himself, ever actively engaged in inspecting his lines, was exposed to constant dangers ; on one occasion, having ventured out hunting on the beach, he would inevitably have been taken prisoner by a party of the enemy, had not the advanced guard of his own army, which was stationed in the neighbourhood, luckily come up in time to effect a rescue. Constant communications were kept up between tbe town and the Sultan's army by means of carrier pigeons and of divers, who managed to swim past the enemy's lines, and carry letters and money to and fro between them. The Franks had constructed towers, battering-rams, and other engines of war, with great skill, and would have, no doubt, accomplished the taking of the city by storm, had it not been for a certain cunning artificer from Damascus, who succeeded in destroying them one by one with rockets, naphtha, and other combustibles, which he directed upon the works. The winter and spring passed away without any decisive change in the relative position of the two armies ; but on the 13th of June, 1190, a second naval reinforcement arrived from Egypt, and the Sultan endeavoured, by an attack by land, to divert the attention of the enemy, and enable the marines to land. The -Frank ships, however, were not idle, and several severe engagements took place by sea, in which the Muslims had decidedly the disadvantage. Presently news arrived that the Emperor of Germany had crossed over from Constantinople, and had been for more than a month, during the severest season of winter, in great straits, his army being compelled to devour their cavalry horses for want of food, and to burn their pontoons in the absence of fire-wood. On reaching Tarsus the army halted to drink at the river which flows by the city, and the Emperor being driven, in the crowd and confusion, to a deep part of the stream, where there was a rapid current, was hurried away by the force of the stream, received a blow on the