That night Saladin pushed on as far as the Nahr el Aoudjeh, crossed it, and encamped on its southern bank.[786] This river is called by the Frank writers “the River of Arsuf,” but might have more fittingly taken its name from Joppa, for its mouth is seven miles south of the former place and only three miles north of the latter. It is formed by the union of three streams, one of which rises at the foot of the hills of Samaria, another in the valley which divides Mount Ephraim from the Judean range, and the third flows through the northernmost of the passes leading from the plain into the hill-country of Judah. The inland road through the plain crosses these three streams some three miles above their meeting-point, and a road branching off from the crossing-place runs alongside of the southernmost stream up the pass, and thence over the plateau to Jerusalem. Saladin appears to have thought that the Franks might march across the plain and attempt an advance [Sidenote: _Sun., Sept. 8_] upon the Holy City by this route; next day he re-crossed the river and took up a position nearer to Arsuf, ready to intercept them.[787] They, however, had no such intention. They spent that Sunday at Arsuf, keeping the feast of our Lady’s Nativity, and burying their dead hero, James of Avesnes. On Monday the 9th they resumed their southward march,[788] pursued it steadily despite the provocations of the Saracen bowmen, and encamped that night on both sides of the river near its mouth. Hereupon Saladin, perceiving that their immediate objective was Joppa and that he could not prevent them from reaching it, let [Sidenote: _Tues., Sept. 10_] them proceed thither unmolested and encamp next day outside its ruined walls (for, like Arsuf and the more northerly coast-towns, it had been evacuated and dismantled some time before),[789] while he with all his forces hurried to take up his position at Ramlah,[790] whence he could easily watch all the three possible routes of the Christians’ next advance. Two of these routes led—one through Ramlah itself—to Jerusalem; the third led coastwise to Egypt. Either of the two former Saladin might hope either to block or defend; but with the third it was otherwise. The plain south of the Nahr el Aoudjeh is much wider than further north: Joppa is ten miles from the foot of the hills; between Joppa and Ascalon the width of the plain varies from ten to eighteen miles. The character of the country, too, is different; instead of sand-dunes, marshland, moorland, and forest, the way lies through cornfields, palm-groves, villages and towns. It was thus not a place where the Saracen mode of warfare could be made effective against that of the Franks in a pitched battle; yet if the Franks decided to continue their march down the coast, nothing but defeat in a pitched battle could prevent them from laying siege to Ascalon.