The Moslem appetite for blood had at this time been slaked; feelings of compassion for the misfortunes of the fallen had arisen in their breasts, and as resistance had now ceased in every quarter of the field, the lives of the fugitives on Mount Hittin were mercifully spared. Thus ended the memorable battle of Tiberias, which commenced on the afternoon of the 3rd of July, and ended oh the morning of Saturday, the 5th. The multitude of captives taken by the Moslems was enormous; cords could not be found to bind them, the tent ropes were all used for the purpose, but were insufficient, and the Arabian writers tell us, that on seeing the dead, one would have thought that there could have been no prisoners, and on seeing the prisoners, that there could be no dead. “I saw,” says the secretary and companion of Saladin, who was present at this terrible fight, and is unable to restrain himself from pitying the disasters of the vanquished--“I saw the mountains and the plains, the hills and the valleys, covered with their dead. I saw their fallen and deserted banners sullied with dust and with blood. I saw their heads broken and battered, their limbs scattered abroad, and the blackened corpses piled one upon another like the stones of the builders. I called to mind the words of the Koran, ‘The infidel shall say, What am I but _dust_?’... I saw thirty or forty tied together by one cord. I saw in one place, guarded by one Mussulman, two hundred of these famous warriors gifted with amazing strength, who had but just now walked forth amongst the mighty: their proud bearing was gone: they stood naked with downcast eyes, wretched and miserable.... The lying infidels were now in the power of the true believers. Their king and their cross were captured, that cross before which they bow the head and bend the knee; which they bear aloft and worship with their eyes; they say that it is the identical wood to which the God whom they adore was fastened. They had adorned it with fine gold and brilliant stones; they carried it before their armies; they all bowed towards it with respect. It was their first duty to defend it; and he who should desert it would never enjoy peace of mind. The capture of this cross was more grievous to them than the captivity of their king. Nothing can compensate them for the loss of it. It was their God; they prostrated themselves in the dust before it, and sang hymns when it was raised aloft!”