Envoys from the khalif of Egypt, the new holder of Jerusalem, arrived in the crusaders' camp, with presents and promises from their master.

They had orders to offer forty thousand pieces of gold to Godfrey, sixty thousand to Bohemond, the most dreaded by the Mussulmans of all the crusaders, and other gifts to divers other chiefs.

Aboul-Kacem further promised liberty of pilgrimage and exercise of the Christian religion in Jerusalem; only the Christians must not enter, unless unarmed.

At this proposal the crusader chiefs cried out with indignation, and declared to the Egyptian envoys that they were going to hasten their march upon Jerusalem, threatening at the same time to push forward to the borders of the Nile.

At the end of the month of flay, 1099, they were all masse upon the frontiers of Phoenicia and Palestine, numbering according to the most sanguine calculations, only fifty thousand fighting men.
Upon entering Palestine, as they came upon spots known in sacred history or places of any importance, the same feelings of greed and jealousy which had caused so much trouble in Asia Minor and Syria caused divisions once more amongst the crusaders.