[757] _Est._, ll. 5863-92, 5935-42; _Itin._, 253, 254. [758] Bohadin, 245, 246. [759] Its Arabic name is Nahr es Zerka, “blue” or “grey river.” [760] Bohadin, 247-50. [761] _Est._, ll. 5981-4; _Itin._, 256. [762] _Est._, ll. 5944-6004; _Itin._, 255-6. The date of the arrival of the host at Caesarea has to be made out by counting the days’ marches and halts, as given by these two writers, since the departure from Acre. A question arises whether Ambrose’s “deus jours de sejour” (l. 5936) at Casal des Destreitz means two whole days and three nights, _i. e._, August 27-30, or two nights and one whole day besides the day of arrival there, _i. e._, August 27-29. The word in the _Itinerarium_—“biduo”—does not help to a decision; but Bohadin does help, though indirectly. He says (250) the Franks reached Caesarea on “Friday 6 Jaban.” This date is self-contradictory; the 6 Jaban (= August 29) was Thursday, and from this point to 14 Jaban (= September 6) all Bohadin’s days of the week are one day in advance of his days of the month. On reaching the last date of the series, however, we shall find from other evidence that the day of the week, not that of the month, is the correct one all through; therefore the “two days” are to be taken in the widest sense, and the entry into Caesarea was on Friday, August 30. [763] Bohadin, 250, 251; for the date, which he gives as 8 Jaban (= August 31), see preceding note. Imad-ed-Din, in Abu Shama, 34, gives it correctly, 9 Jaban = September 1. [764] Bohadin, 251, 252. [765] Bohadin, 253. [766] _Est._, ll. 6039-46; _Itin._, 257. [767] Bohadin, 255. [768] _Est._, ll. 6047-64; _Itin._, 258. Oddly enough, Richard soon afterwards forgot the date of his own wound, for in a letter inserted in R. Howden, iii. 130, he says it occurred on the third day before Saladin’s defeat (at Arsuf), _i. e._ on September 5. We shall see that this date is impossible, because on September 5 there was no fighting at all. [769] _Est._, ll. 6071-90; _Itin._, 258, 259. [770] Bohadin, 255-7. [771] _Est._, ll. 6092-111; _Itin._, 259. Bohadin, 257, describes the site as “a place called Birka” (the Pond, or Marsh), “whence the sea was visible.” It is probably one of the streamlets which, when not dried up or choked up with sand, run into the Nahr el Falik, a little creek about eight miles south of the mouth of the Salt River. [772] _Est._, ll. 6114-17; _Itin._, _l.c._ [773] Bohadin, 258, calls it “Saturday 14 Jaban” (= September 6), but all the Frank writers show that the date of the battle was really Saturday September 7 = 15 Jaban. [774] _Est._, ll. 6191-4, 6204-8; _Itin._, 261. [775] Cf. Bohadin, 258, _Est._, l. 6211, and _Itin._, 262 and 274; the passage “Sicque et in parte ... fixere tentoria” in this latter page seems to be out of place, and to represent Bohadin’s words (_l.c._) “the foremost of the Frank footmen reached the gardens of Arsuf.” [776] _Est._, ll. 6212-51; _Itin._, 262, 263.