Note (8) — 37.—How many kings-sultan there were, whilst I was amongst the Infidels.
J. Buchan (John Buchan) Telfer translation
(8.) “inhabited by seventy-two languages.”—This “great forest” is the Caucasus, the extent of the great mountain range in a direct line from sea to sea, agreeing exactly with the length given. The seventy-two languages are the seventy-two nationalities (Dorn, Geog. Cauc., 221), each of which spoke a different tongue; they were the seventy-two nations confined by Alexander beyond the Caspian Gates.