erior to calamity, and pictured
the eventual triumph of his cause. He, so lately the leader of a hundred
thousand men, was now a solitary skulker in the forests, liable at every
instant to be discovered by some pursuing Bulgarian, and cut off in mid
career. Chance at last brought him within sight of an eminence, where two
or three of his bravest knights had collected five hundred of the
stragglers. These gladly received the Hermit, and a consultation having
taken place, it was resolved to gather together the scattered remnants of
the army. Fires were lighted on the hill, and scouts sent out in all
directions for the fugitives. Horns were sounded at intervals, to make
known that friends were near, and before nightfall the Hermit saw himself
at the head of seven thousand men. During the succeeding day, he was
joined by twenty thousand more, and with this miserable remnant of his
force, he pursued his route towards Constantinople. The bones of the rest
mouldered in the forests of Bulgaria.

On his arrival at Constantinople, where he found Walter the Pennyless
awaiting him, he was hospitably received by the Emperor Alexius. It might
have been expected that the sad reverses they had undergone would have
taught his followers common prudence; but, unhappily for them, their
turbulence and love of plunder was not to be restrained. Although they
were surrounded by friends, by whom all their wants were liberally
supplied, they could not refrain from rapine. In vain the Hermit exhorted
them to tranquillity; he possessed no more power over them, in subduing
their passions, than the obscurest soldier of the host. They set fire to
several public buildings in Constantinople out of pure mischief, and
stripped the lead from the roofs of the churches, which they afterwards
sold for old metal in the purlieus of the city. From this time may be
dated the aversion which the Emperor Alexius entertained for the
Crusaders, and which was afterwards manifested in all his actions, even
when he had to deal with the chivalrous and more honourable armies which
arrived after the Hermit. He seems to have imagined that the Turks
themselves were enemies less formidable to his power than these
outpourings of the refuse of Europe: he soon found a pretext to hurry them
into Asia Minor. Peter crossed the Bosphorus with Walter, but the excesses
of his followers were such, that, despairing of accomplishing any good end
by remaining at their head, he left them to