The
flat top of his cumbrous cylindrical helmet was unadorned with
any crest. In retaining their own unwieldy defensive armour, the
Northern Crusaders seemed to set at defiance the nature of the
climate and country to which they had come to war.
The accoutrements of the horse were scarcely less massive and
unwieldy than those of the rider. The animal had a heavy saddle
plated with steel, uniting in front with a species of
breastplate, and behind with defensive armour made to cover the
loins. Then there was a steel axe, or hammer, called a mace-of-arms, and which hung to the saddle-bow.
The reins were secured
by chain-work, and the front-stall of the bridle was a steel
plate, with apertures for the eyes and nostrils, having in the
midst a short, sharp pike, projecting from the forehead of the
horse like the horn of the fabulous unicorn.
But habit had made the endurance of this load of panoply a second
nature, both to the knight and his gallant charger. Numbers,
indeed, of the Western warriors who hurried to Palestine died ere
they became inured to the burning climate; but there were others
to whom that climate became innocent and even friendly, and among
this fortunate number was the solitary horseman who now traversed
the border of the Dead Sea.
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