A sequel to this "o'er true tale" is found in the sufferings of another rabble of thirty thousand boys and girls, who, under {63} the peasant lad, Nicholas, in crossing the Alps lost nearly half their number. Five thousand reached Genoa, and, being invited by the senate, concluded to settle there. The rest marched to Brindisi, and, setting sail for Palestine, were never heard of more. Worthless in themselves and wholly useless as a means for founding any permanent dominion in Palestine or elsewhere, these enterprises were a means in the overruling hand of God of effecting the nations of Europe in a way which the promoters never dreamed of. Their results were many and various. One was that they drew away many of the warlike and turbulent, and gave, as it were, a resting time for the states of Western Europe, during which, learning, science and general culture, among the quietly-disposed, made rapid advances, and many cities and smaller states rose from obscurity to opulence and power. Another was the change of feeling which took place in the Crusaders themselves. What a surprise awaited these religious barbarians--for such they really were--when for the first time they gazed on the splendors of Constantinople in its palmiest days! What a contrast to their own rude homes, when they passed into Asia Minor, that garden of the world, presenting well-cultivated fields, orchards, vineyards, palaces and schools, the civilization of a thousand years! How unexpected the character of those Saracens, whom they had been taught to regard as no better than bloodthirsty fiends, but whom they found to be valiant, merciful and just! When Richard the Lion-heart, king of England, lay in his tent consumed by a fever, there came into the camp camels laden with snow, from Mount Lebanon, to assuage his disease. It was a present from his enemy, the great Mahometan Saladin--the homage of one brave soldier to another. But when Richard was returning to England it was by a Christian prince, who should have aided him, that he was treacherously seized and secretly confined.