The Crusaders recognised at once the value of its position, and Baldwin I. besieged it in 1103, as soon as Jerusalem was secured. The garrison were relieved by a fleet from Tyre; but, in the following year, it fell into the hands of the Christians, after twenty-five days’ siege. In the disastrous year, 1187, Saladin took it without a blow; but the place was too important to be lost, and the Christians again took it in 1191. In 1229, the Knights Hospitallers settled here, whence its modern title, St. Jean d’Acre; but it was finally lost, in 1291, when the son of Kalawûn levelled it to the ground. In its palmy days, the town contained a church to St. Andrew, of which a few arches still remain near the sea; a second of St. Michael, now destroyed; a third of St. John, possibly now a mosque; a castle, where the modern barrack stands; a hospital of the Knights of St. John, now the military hospital; and a patriarchate, now perhaps a monastery. On the south the mole ran out south-east and east, closing in the port, and terminated by the rock and tower of El Manâra. There were two lines of wall on the north and east, and in the angle was the famous tower called “Tower of Flies,” or “Maledictum,” which long resisted King Richard, when besieging the town from the great mound called Turon, on the east, where also Napoleon made his attack. There was a sort of suburb on the north, with a double wall, which now seems to have disappeared entirely, though the sea-rampart is, in all probability, Crusading work. The southern quarter of the town belonged to the Venetians, and north of them the Germans had several streets. The Templars and Hospitallers had each their Custodia; and, in the thirteenth century, the Teutonic knights had wide possessions, in the plains round Acre, and among the villages, or “casales,” as they called them, of Lower Galilee. The splendid buildings of the Christians were levelled to the ground, and the place remained desolate until 1749 A.D.