The wisest and the bravest, in such a critical situation, were beginning to despair of the success of the holy enterprise, when they were cheered by a succour as welcome as it was unexpected. They learned that a Genoese fleet had entered the port of Joppa, laden with provisions and munitions of all kinds. This news spread joy throughout the Christian army; a body of three hundred men left the camp to go and meet the convoy, which Heaven appeared to have sent to the Crusaders in their misery. The detachment, after having beaten the Saracens they met with on their passage, entered the city of Joppa, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants, and was occupied by the Genoese. The Crusaders learnt that the Genoese fleet had been surprised and burnt by that of the Saracens, but that they had had time to secure the provisions, and a great number of implements and tools. All that was saved was safely conveyed to the camp; and it afforded the Crusaders additional joy to find that the welcome supply was attended by a great number of Genoese engineers and carpenters. As wood was still short for the construction of the machines, a Syrian conducted the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders to a mountain situated thirty miles from Jerusalem. It was here the Christians found the forest of which Tasso speaks in the “Jerusalem Delivered.” The trees of this forest were not forbidden to the axe of the Crusaders, either by the enchantment of Ismen, or the arms of the Saracens: cars drawn by oxen transported it in triumph to the walls of Jerusalem. All the leaders except Raymond of Toulouse were in want of money to pay for the labours they had commanded. The zeal and charity of the pilgrims came to their relief; many offered all they had left of the booty conquered from the enemy; knights and barons themselves became laborious workmen; all at length were employed--everything in the army was in movement: women, children, and even the sick, shared the labours of the soldiers. Whilst the most robust were occupied in the construction of rams, catapultas, and covered galleries, others fetched in skins the water they drew from the fountain of Elperus, on the road to Damascus, or from the rivulet which flowed on the other side of Bethlehem, towards the desert of St. John; some prepared the skins which were to be stretched over the machines to make them proof against fire; whilst others traversed the neighbouring plains and mountains, to collect branches of the olive and fig trees to make hurdles and fascines.