"Two hundred thousand Mussulmans were drawn up in the plains of Assur, ready to bar the passage of the Christian army, and deliver a decisive battle. No sooner did he perceive the Saracen array, than Richard divided his army into five corps. The Templars formed the first; the warriors of Brittany and Anjou the second; the king, Guy, and the men of Poitou the third; the English and Normans, grouped round the royal standard, the fourth; the Hospitallers the fifth; and behind them marched the archers and javelin men. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the army was all arranged in order of battle, when all at once a multitude of Saracens appeared in rear, who descended from the mountains which the Crusaders had just crossed. Amongst them were Bedouin Arabs, bearing bows and round bucklers; Scythians with long bows, and mounted on tall and powerful horses; Ethiopians of a lofty stature, with their sable visages strangely streaked with white. These troops of barbarians advanced on all sides against the Christian army with the rapidity of lightning. The earth trembled under their horses' feet. The din of their clarions, cymbals, and trumpets, was so prodigious, that the loudest thunder could not have been heard. Men were in their ranks, whose sole business it was to raise frightful cries, and excite the courage of the Mussulman warriors by chanting their national songs. Thus stimulated, their battalions precipitated themselves upon the Crusaders, who were speedily assailed at once in front, both flanks, and rear--enveloped by enemies, say the old chronicles, as the eyelashes surround the EYE. After their arrows and javelins were discharged, the Saracens commenced the attack with the lance, the mace, and the sword. An English chronicle aptly compares them to smiths, and the Crusaders to the anvil on which their hammers rang. Meanwhile, the Franks did not for a moment intermit their march towards Assur, and the Saracens, who sought in vain to shake their steady ranks, called them 'a nation of iron.'