“According to William of Tyre, it was a Syrian who pointed it out to the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders. This historian places it at a distance of seven or eight miles from Jerusalem, and remarks that the trees of this forest being of small growth, and not capable of furnishing the strong timber of which they stood in need, the difficulty of procuring any other in a country in which woods were very rare, obliged them to form these machines of pieces fastened together, which required much time and labour.
“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 penitùs, tamen ad aliquem modum bonas invenerunt plures.”
William of Tyre is mistaken in the distances, when stating this forest to be six or seven miles from Jerusalem, whilst it is really ten or eleven leagues from it. He places it likewise in a deep valley, which could only be correct if considered with reference to the mountains of Gosna and Naplouse, from which the Crusaders might have descended to cut the wood of which they stood in need.
“Raoul of Caën, equally a contemporary historian, is more exact in the placing of this forest, and proves to us in an irrefutable manner, that it was that of Saron in which the Crusaders went to cut the timbers for the siege; for he places it at the foot of the mountains of Naplouse, exactly where it now exists.
“Lucus erat in montibus, et montes ad Hyerusalem remoti ei, quà modò Neapolis, olim Sebasta, ante Sychar dictus est, propiores, adhuc ignota nostratibus via, nunc celebris et fermè peregrinatium unica.”—Rad. Cad. cap. 121.
“In fact, to come from St. Jean d’Acre to Jerusalem, it is necessary to pass through this forest; and I do not know how the Crusaders could pass it without observing it, in their march from Antioch to the holy city. Apparently having followed the shores of the sea from Cæsarea to Jaffa, and the high hills that were on their left, prevented their seeing it.
“Le Perè Maimbourg does better; knowing that Palestine is a country in which woods have at all times been rare, in his History of the Crusades,’ he doubts the existence of this forest, which is, to the best of my belief, the only one in these cantons.
“Tasso, whose poetical and rich imagination delighted in creating so many wonderful things, was not stopped by such trifling considerations, and in his Jerusalem Delivered, the forest of Saron has supplied him with one of the finest episodes of his poem.
“I must here hazard some ideas upon the origin of the name of the forest, of the city, and of the country of Saron. M. D’Anville, in his map of Palestine, gives to the part of the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, comprised between the torrent of Lidda and that of Apollonias, the name of Saronas, which he writes as the name of the country; and it is precisely on this spot that the forest of Saron exists, of which, perhaps, M. D’Anville had no kind of knowledge. He likewise places between these two torrents above Lidda, a city called Thamnath Sara, in a country which he denominates Tamnitica, which now forms part of the forest where Mount Saron again unites with the principal chain.