In the Christian era, Cestius Gallus made his disastrous expedition by the Valley of Ajalon, Beth-horon and Gibeon. Titus, after the surrounding country had been subjugated, moved his army up to Jerusalem by Gophna (Jufna) and Bethel, and so through Bireh, from the north-west and north. The Moslems, in 637, first captured Damascus; subsequently they approached Jerusalem across the Jordan. The First Crusaders came through Asia Minor and won a decisive victory at Antioch; thence they came southward along the coast, through Ramleh, and up the Valley of Ajalon, their advance through the mountains being unopposed. Saladin, by the decisive battle of Hattin, near Tiberias, made himself master of the surrounding country before closing in upon Jerusalem, which he eventually did from Hebron (south), from Askalon (west), and from the north. In the Third Crusade, Richard and his Crusaders came oversea to Acre; after marching to Ramleh, they tried first to reach the Holy City up the Valley of Ajalon, and afterwards by the Vale of Elah, the Wady es Sunt, further to the south, but both attempts failed. Many of the invading armies that have swept through Palestine have confined themselves to the great inter-continental road along the Maritime Plain, and have passed by Jerusalem, secure upon its plateau. We have seen that this was so with Sennacherib. This was probably the case with Alexander the Great, and was undoubtedly so with Napoleon. The latter defeated the Turks at Gaza and again on the Plain of Esdraelon. His objective was Syria, but he was foiled by the action of the British in the siege of Acre. This distraction also prevented him from making any attempt to reach Jerusalem. Prior to the arrival of the British, it was seven centuries since a Christian conqueror had set foot in Jerusalem. But there was now no gloating of the Cross over the Crescent. On the contrary, guards of Moslem troops from our Indian army were placed upon every building sacred to Islam, while Christian guards were mounted over those sacred to Christianity. Never before had Jerusalem fallen into the hands of conquerors so zealous for the safety of its populace or so concerned for the preservation of the city and all that it contained. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: Much of the material in this Chapter is derived from Milman's _History of the Jews_, W. Besant and E. H. Palmer's _Jerusalem_, and George Adam Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, to which my acknowledgments are accordingly due.] [Footnote 3: Milman.] [Footnote 4: Milman.] [Footnote 5: Milman.] [Footnote 6: Besant & Palmer.] [Footnote 7: Besant & Palmer.] [Footnote 8: G. A. Smith.] CHAPTER XII JUNCTION STATION AND LUDD