In August, Peter the Hermit appeared under the walls of Constantinople with about seven thousand soldiers and camp followers to recruit his wasted energies in the camp of Walter the Penniless while waiting for other and better armed and disciplined forces to arrive. From the banks of the Rhine, from Flanders, and even from Britain an army largely composed of the refuse of mankind, two hundred thousand strong, started on its march--but soon gave themselves to unheard-of barbarities. How much worse than a Mohammedan was a member of that hated race which had crucified the Christ and so they let loose their fury against the defenseless Jews in most pitiless massacres, sweeping on into Hungary, to the city of Mersburg, which shut its gates and refused them provisions. Forests were cut down, causeways built across the swamps which partially protected the walls and a furious assault was made upon the city. The battle raged fiercely and for a long time with doubtful result, but at last the scaling ladders of the Crusaders began to give way, and then fell dragging down their occupants and fragments of the walls and towers. These disasters carried panic into the army of the besiegers and they fled into the forests, were caught in the swamps and were ruthlessly slaughtered. Few of the desperate and cruel adventurers escaped. Some found the way back to their own country covered with disgrace--a few more made their way to the army of Peter the Hermit encamped before Constantinople. Thus far this fanatical spirit had cost Western Europe the lives of nearly a quarter of a million people, and not a Saracen had been seen. But the motley crowd encamped on the Bosphorus augmented by adventurers from Italian cities had gradually increased until now it probably numbered one hundred thousand all told. They were scarcely more welcome than the Saracens to the Emperor Alexius who had treated them as guests and supplied their famished hosts. Their desire for plunder could not long be restrained, and the churches, houses and palaces in the suburbs fell a prey to their rapacity which was as insatiable as the cry for blood that rises from a pack of ravening wolves. Alexius was therefore very glad to furnish them with transportation across the Bosphorus. They were now on Asiatic soil an undisciplined and motley crowd in the face of the well armed and equally furious and fanatical Turk. They revelled in the pillage of the fertile plains of Nicomedia, dividing the booty at night in their camps. They plundered the valley, ravaged and burned the villages and committed most horrible excesses; they captured a small fort near the mountains from the Turks and massacred the garrison. The Turks reinforced, fell upon them in turn, and put nearly all of them to the sword. This roused the anger of the mixed crowds in camp. Nothing could restrain the blind fury of the soldier mob. They chased the apparently flying columns of the Turks into the mountains of an unknown country