Sæwulf's account of the disastrous storm which attended their arrival at Jaffa shows us what multitudes of pilgrims now crowded to the Holy Land. Among these were people of all classes, rich and poor, noble and ignoble, laymen equally with monks and clergy. Some went in humility and meekness to visit the scene of their salvation, while others, embarking with crews of desperate marauders, although they went to the Holy City with the same professions, proceeded as privateers, or rather as pirates, plundering and devastating on their way. Among this latter class the descendants of the sea-kings of the north appear to have been especially distinguished, and the Scandinavian sagas have preserved more than one narrative, half authentic and half romantic, of their adventures. It has been thought advisable to give, as a specimen of these, the story of SIGURD THE CRUSADER, a northern prince, whose presence at the capture of Beyrout, in 1110, is mentioned by William of Tyre. The land of Palestine was at this time beginning to attract, in an unusual degree, the attention of another class of travellers from western Europe—learned men of the Jewish nation—who were anxious to discover and to make known to their brethren the condition of the various synagogues in the East, after so many sanguinary revolutions, as well as to visit the burial-places of the eminent Hebrews of former days. Several of their relations, written in Hebrew, are still preserved in manuscript, and a few have been printed[10]. The earliest of these of any importance is that of BENJAMIN OF TUDELA. We have an "Itinerary of Palestine" made by Samuel bar Simson in 1210; a "Description of the Sacred Tombs" by a Jew of Paris named Jacob, in 1258; and several tracts of the same kind in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Mr. Asher, to whom we owe the best edition of Benjamin of Tudela, has fixed the date of Benjamin's travels from his own narrative with great acuteness. It appears from different circumstances to which he alludes, that his visit to Rome must have taken place subsequent to 1159, that he was at Constantinople probably in December 1161, and that his account of Egypt, which almost concludes the work, must have been written prior to 1171[11]. "If we add to these dates," Mr. Asher observes, "that of his return, as given in the preface, we shall find that the narrative refers to a period of about fourteen years, viz. from 1159 or 1160, to 1173." To these dates pointed out by Mr. Asher, it may be added, that he appears to have been at Antioch immediately after the accession of Bohemond III. in 1163; and that he probably reached Sicily, on his way back, early in 1169. By comparing these dates with the general course of the narrative, I have endeavoured to arrange with tolerable accuracy the successive years of Benjamin's wanderings; the dates of which are given at the heads of the pages.