Note 163 — BOOK IV.

Maimbourg does not seem to credit the existence of this forest, and says that it is an invention of Tasso’s. He might have read in William of Tyre this sentence, which is not at all equivocal:—Casu affuit quidam fidelis indigena natione Syrus, qui in valles quasdam secretiores, sex aut septem ab urbe distantes milliaribus, quosdam de principibus direxit, ubi arbores, etsi non ad conceptum opus aptas penitus, tamen ad aliquem modum proceras invenerunt plures. Raoul de Caen is much more positive and explicit than William of Tyre; this is the way in which he expresses himself:—Lucus erat in montibus et montes ad Hyerusalem remoti ei; quæ modo Neapolis, olim Sebasta, ante Sychar dictus est, propriores, adhuc ignota nostratibus via, nunc celebris et ferme peregrenantium unica.—Rad. Cad. cap. 121.