“It stood,” says Bohadin, “by the sea-side, and was of amazing size and strength. I went into it, and examined it. The walls and the foundations were so solid, and of such immense width, that no battering machines could have produced the slightest effect upon them.” Every heart was filled with sorrow and mourning at the sight of the scorched and blackened ruins of the once fair and beautiful Ascalon. “The city,” says Bohadin, “was very elegant, and, in truth, exquisitely beautiful; its stupendous fortifications and lofty edifices possessed a majesty and grandeur which inspired one with awe.”[93] Ascalon, once the proudest of the five satrapies of the lords of the Philistines, is now uninhabited. The walls still lie scattered in huge fragments along the sea-shore, mixed with columns and broken pillars, which are wedged in among them, and amid the confused heaps of ruin which mark the site of the ancient city, not a single dwelling is now visible. “The king shall perish from Gaza,” saith the prophet, “and ASCALON shall _not be inhabited_.” On the 16th of October Cœur de Lion wrote a letter to Saladin, exhorting him to put an end to the holy war; but he demanded, as the price of peace, the restitution of Jerusalem, of Palestine, and the true cross. “Jerusalem,” says the king, “we consider to be the seat of our religion, and every one of us will perish rather than abandon it. Do you restore to us the country on this side Jordan, together with the holy cross, which is of no value to you, being in your eyes a mere piece of wood, but which we Christians prize greatly; we will then make peace, and repose from our incessant toils.” “When the sultan,” says Bohadin, who was himself a participator in the negotiation, “had read this letter, he took counsel with his emirs, and sent a reply to the following effect:--‘The Holy City is held in as great reverence and estimation by the Moslems, as it is by you, ay, and in much greater reverence. From thence did our prophet Mahomet undertake his nocturnal journey to heaven, and upon that holy spot have the angels and the prophets at different periods been gathered together. Think not that we will ever surrender it. Never would we be so unmindful of our duty, and of that which it behoves us to do, as good Mussulmen. As to the country you speak of, it hath belonged to us of old, and if you took it from the Moslems when they were weak, they have taken it from you now that they are strong, as they have a right to do. You may continue the war, but God will not give you a stone of the land as a possession, for he hath given the country to the Moslems, to be by them plentifully and bountifully enjoyed. As to the cross, the reverence you pay to that bit of wood is a scandalous idolatry, disrespectful to the Most High, and hateful in the sight of God. We will, therefore, not give it to you, unless by so doing we can secure some great and manifest advantage for Islam.’”