They learned that a Genoese fleet had entered the port of Jaffa, laden with provisions and ammunition of all sorts. This news spread the greatest joy through the Christian army, and a body of three hundred men, commanded by Raymond Pelet, set out from the camp to meet the convoy, which Heaven appeared to have sent the Crusaders in their misery. This detachment, after having beaten and dispersed the Saracens they met on their passage, entered the city of Jaffa, which, being abandoned by its inhabitants, was occupied by the Genoese. On their arrival, the Crusaders learnt that the Christian fleet had been surprised and burnt by that of the infidels, but they had had time to get out the provisions and a great quantity of instruments for the construction of machines of war. All they had been able to save was transported to the camp of the Christians. This convoy arrived under the walls of Jerusalem, followed by a great number of Genoese engineers and carpenters, whose presence greatly revived the emulation and courage of the army. As they still had not sufficient wood for the construction of the machines, a Syrian conducted the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders to a mountain situated at a distance of thirty miles from Jerusalem, between the Valley of Samaria and the Valley of Sechem. There the Christians found the forest of which Tasso speaks in the “Jerusalem Delivered.”[163] The trees of this forest were neither protected from the axe of the Crusaders by the enchantments of Ismen nor the arms of the Saracens. Oxen shod with iron transported them in triumph before Jerusalem. None of the leaders, except Raymond of Thoulouse, had sufficient money to pay for the labours they had commanded, but the zeal and charity of the pilgrims came to their assistance. Many offered the remains of the spoil taken from the enemy; the knights and barons themselves became laborious workmen; and every arm was employed, and everything in motion throughout the army. The women, the children, even the sick, shared the toils of the soldiers. Whilst the more robust were engaged in the construction of rams, catapultas, and covered galleries, others fetched water in skins from the fountain of Elpira, on the road to Damascus, or from a rivulet which flowed beyond Bethlehem, towards the desert of St. John. Some prepared the skins that were to be stretched over the machines to render them fire-proof, whilst others traversed the plains and neighbouring mountains to collect branches of the olive, the fig,[164] and some other trees of the country, to make hurdles and faggots.