[742] Extract from Imad-ed-Din, in Abu Shama, _Hist. des Crois._, iv. 277, 278. It is probably to this that Bohadin alludes when he speaks of “reprisals” as one of the motives to which the massacre at Acre was attributed; and it is he who adds (p. 243) that it was also ascribed to Richard’s sense of the risk of leaving so many prisoners behind him. The story told in the _Gesta_, 189, and R. Howden, iii. 127, that Saladin had wantonly provoked the retaliation by beheading on August 18 all the Christian prisoners who should have been exchanged for his own men next day, is obviously a fiction; and it is clear that the leaders of the host were not even misled by a false report, for the _Estoire_ and the _Itinerarium_ make no mention of any such thing. [743] _Est._, ll. 5543-5, _Itin._, 244. [744] _Est._, ll. 5384-7; _Itin._, 240; cf. Bohadin, 244. [745] _Gesta_, 190. [746] _Est._, ll. 5550-65; _Itin._, 244. [747] _Est._, l. 5675; _Itin._, 247, 248. This would include three hundred (or five hundred, R. Howden) Christian prisoners who were in Acre when it was surrendered. _Gesta_, 178; R. Howden, iii. 120. [748] _Gesta_, 190; R. Howden, iii. 128. Bohadin, 244, gives the date of the departure, 29 Rajab (= Thursday, August 22). [749] _Est._, ll. 5677-702; _Itin._, 248. [750] _Est._, ll. 5704-14; _Itin._, _l.c._ [751] Bohadin, 244-6. [752] This is the date given by the _Est._, ll. 5721-33, and _Itin._, 249. Bohadin (244), Ibn Alathyr (_Recueil_, II. ii. 48), and Imad-ed-Din (in Abu Shama, _ib._, iv. 33) say 1 Jaban (= August 24). From this point to the Crusaders’ departure from Caesarea, I follow Bohadin’s reckoning for the movements of Saladin, on whom he was in attendance, and the reckoning of the two Frank chroniclers of the Crusade (the writers of _Estoire_ and _Itinerarium_) for the movements of the host, of which one of them is universally acknowledged to have been a member, and I personally believe the other to have been so likewise. We shall find that from August 30 to September 6, 1191, Bohadin’s dates are confused; a like confusion may have affected them for the whole period from August 24, but of this we cannot be sure. [753] _Est._, ll. 5751-95; _Itin._, 249-51; cf. Bohadin, 244-5. [754] _Itin._, 251. [755] _Est._, ll. 5800-60; _Itin._, 251-2. [756] The difficulty is complicated by the contradictory descriptions of the site in _Est._, ll. 5889-90, and 5935, and in _Itin._, 253, 254. The present native name of Athlit is Khirbet Dustrey. One is tempted to suggest that “Destreitz” might be an attempt to reproduce the sound of, and give a meaning to, this native appellation; but as an Arabic scholar has been good enough to answer a question on the subject by informing me that “it is quite impossible to trace the word Dustrey” in that language, one is driven to conclude that the corruption has taken place in the opposite direction, and that “Dustrey” is a modern Arab form of the old French “Destreitz” (Latin “Districtum).”