The yearly influx of at least one hundred thousand pilgrims, however, aroused suspicion among the great mass of Mahometans, who failed to comprehend the purport of their extraordinary journey, but perceived the necessity of putting some restraint on this annual rush of such countless multitudes. The consequence was that wrongs were inflicted and retaliated until the mere journey to Jerusalem involved dangers from which even the bravest might shrink. Insults offered to the pilgrims were accompanied by insults offered to the holy places and to those who ministered in them. Still the pilgrims went forth by thousands, and occasionally hundreds and frequently only tens returned to recount the miseries and wanton cruelties they had undergone. Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom a fierce indignation was stirring the hearts of men, and their rage, like pent up waters, needed only an opportunity to rush forth as a flood over the lands under the control of the Mahometans. That opportunity was not long wanting. Peter, the hermit, who had witnessed the barbarities to which the pilgrims were exposed, roused Europe to a frantic state by his preaching. Dwarfish in stature and mean in person, he was yet filled with a zeal that knew no bounds. The horrors which fired his soul were those which would most surely stir the conscience and arouse the wrath of his hearers. His fiery appeals carried everything before him. Wherever he went, the rich and the poor, the aged and the young, the nobles and the peasants thronged in thousands around the emaciated stranger. He traveled with his head and feet bare, calling on all classes to deliver from the unbeliever the land which was the cradle of their faith. {59} The vehemence which choked his own utterance became contagious. His sobs and groans called forth the tears and cries of the vast crowds who hung upon his words and greedily devoured the harrowing accounts of the pilgrims, whom Peter brought forward as witnesses of the truth of his picture. The excitement and frenzy of the moment threw, no doubt, a specious coloring over an enterprise of doubtful morality, and which eventually pandered to the basest passion of humanity. These wars are known in history by the name of Crusades, from the Latin term _crux_, a cross, which emblem was painted on the breasts or shoulders of all who engaged in them. When the masses were thoroughly excited, Pope Urban gave the enterprise his sanction, and promised to all who would enlist a full remission of their sins. This encouraged innumerable desperadoes to assume the badge of the cross. Fanaticism and hypocrisy, lust and avarice strangely urged their several votaries to pursue one path, and all under the sacred and now woefully profaned name of Christian zeal!