vast tree—form a verdant dome through which the vertical sun penetrates not. I delighted in cherishing
the persuasion of their full antiquity, as I mused on Israel's history, and thought of the glory of
Lebanon. As I gazed upon them I felt that description must always sound like exaggeration. I have seen
noble Cedars in Europe—the growth of centuries—but compared with those of Lebanon they are
but saplings." * .
In 1842, Lord Castlereagh says: "There are about two hundred trees in all, occupying a knoll
which, taking the irregularity of surface into account, covers about six or seven acres. There are one or
two stragglers, but at no great distance from the clump. . . . Some of the trees bear the names upon their
bark of Laborde, Burckhardt, and Lamartine, with several others. The Cedar of Lamartine was measured,
and we found it to be above 24 feet in girth. There are not above seven or eight of them magnates, but a
goodly supply of smaller ones surrounds them; and there seems no chance at present of the race dying away
or being destroyed." t
Mr. Kinglake, the author of " Eothen," thus speaks of the Cedars in that work: " The group of
Cedars remaining on this point of Lebanon is held sacred by the Greek Church, on account of a prevailing
notion that the trees were standing at the time when the temple of Jerusalem was built. They occupy
three or four acres on the mountain's side, and many of them are gnarled in a way that implies great age;
but except those signs, I saw nothing in their appearance or conduct that tended to prove them contemporaries
of the Cedars employed in Solomon's temple" (Eothen, 1st edition, 1844, p. $07). What other
signs Mr. Kinglake could expect to find of their contemporaneity with Solomon, except the appearance
of great age, he does not say.
The Rabbi Joseph Schwarz writes in 1850, and says that " Cedars El Arz are found nowhere except
on Mount Lebanon. But in Syria, in the vicinity of Aleppo, there are likewise Cedars, though in very
limited numbers;" but he does not give his authority for the statement.
Mr. James Laird Patterson says of them, in June 1850 : " The Cedars appear about two hundred in
number, of which some eight or ten are very large. We measured three of the largest, and found them
respectively 37 feet 10 inches, 28 feet, and 27 feet in girth."S
Van der Velde, whose map of Palestine, by the way, is the best which has been yet published,
naturally examined the whole country minutely, while procuring materials for his map. He spent a
considerable time in the Holy Land in 1851 and 1852 ; and he says of the Cedars: "You know from the
narratives of different travellers that the old Cedars, now only twelve in number, stand on a broad cleft of
Lebanon at 6300 feet above the sea. You know that those venerable trees, perhaps the oldest in the
world, and which some think must have sprung up soon after the Flood, are giants above all other trees
growing, and that this dozen is surrounded by an aftergrowth of 400 younger Cedars, more or less." 1
Dr. Robinson, the author of the well-known and able " Biblical Researches," visited Lebanon and the
Cedars in 1852. He says: "The Cedars, which still bear their antient name, stand mostly upon four
small contiguous rocky knolls, within a compass of less than 40 rods in diameter. They form a thick
forest, without underbrush. The older trees have each several trunks, and thus spread themselves widely
around ; but most of the others arc cone-like in form, and do not throw out their boughs laterally to any
great extent. Some few trees stand alone on the outskirts of the Grove ; and one especially on the south
is large and very beautiful. With this exception, none of the trees came up to my ideal of the graceful
beauty of the Cedar of Lebanon, such as I had formerly seen it in the Jardin des Plantes. I made no
attempt to count the trees ; probably no two persons would fully agree in respect to the old ones or m the
number of the whole. Yet I should be disposed to concur in the language of Burckhardt, who says, ' Of
the oldest and best-looking trees I counted eleven or twelve; twenty-five very large ones, about fifty of
middling size, and more than three hundred smaller and younger ones.'" *
The Rev. John Wilson, F.R.S., visited the Holy Land in 1853, and has given an excellent account
of his observations in his " Lands of the Bible." His line of travel brought him to the Cedars by the
return route from Baalbec. The following is his account of his visit to them: " After drinking a cup of
warm milk, which a goatherd kindly offered to us, we commenced our descent to the ' Cedars.' As first
seen by us from Jebel Makmel, they appeared merely as a speck of green beyond the snowy wreaths which
intervened between us and them. The perpendicular fall of the mountain to them is 2400 feet, for they
are 6000 feet above the level of the sea; but the road winds so cautiously down the side of the mountain,
that loaded horses and mules can get to them without much difficulty. We made all possible haste to
them, and we remained a couple of hours beneath their hallowed shelter. They stand on what may be
called the shoulder of Lebanon, on ground of a varying level. They cover about three acres. The
venerable patriarch trees, which have stood the blasts of thousands of winters, amount only to twelve, and
these not standing close together in the same clump; while those of a secondary and still younger growth, as
nearly as can be reckoned, number 325. A person can walk easily round the whole Grove in twenty minutes.
The most curious instance of vegetable growth which we noticed in it was that of two trees near its western
side, stretching out their horizontal branches, and, after embracing, actually uniting and sending up a
common stem. We measured all the larger trees, one of which at least we found to be forty feet in
circumference. We were sorry to observe the names of many travellers, including tjnat of Lamartine, the
poet of France, most savagely cut on their trunks. A monk came to us to beg some aid for the erection
of an oratory under their shade, but we told him that God had already made a temple there, and that no
other was required. In order to gain our favour, he proceeded, with the help of an assistant whom he had,
to strike down some of their boughs to present them to us. Whilst we protested against his injury of the
old trees, we carried off the pieces which he had cut. An examination of the wood—which is remarkably
compact and solid, and of a fine grain, and capable of being cut and carved into ornamental pieces of
furniture, and highly and delightfully scented—has led several of the Edinburgh botanists and carpenters to
dissent from the description of the tree given by Dr. Lindley, who, doubtless judging it from its degenerate
specimens in England, calls it ' the worthless though magnificent Cedar of Mount Lebanon.' t
" On the precise age of the Cedars it is of no use to speculate. Both Mr. Graham and I thought that
the patriarchs may be as old as even the Christian era; but this was forming an opinion from their general
appearance, without any distinct data. Though they are grand and magnificent trees, they are by no means
so symmetrical and beautiful as those of a younger growth which have grown up under their shelter. They
may have escapcd the destructive axe of the Turks just because of their irregular form, and the consequent
difficulty of turning their timber to account. They may never have been put into the ground by the hand
of man, but their seed may have been strewn there from their parents, under the providence of the great
Creator." t
The following is the Rev. J. L. Porter's account of the Cedars as he saw them in August 1853 : " On
first viewing the Cedars from the heights above Hazrun, I experienced feelings of disappointment. I had
pictured in my mind far different scenery in the district around them. Imagination had painted rugged
cliffs and wild ravines, and these remnants of antient noble forests clinging to the mountain-side like Pines
on an Alpine peak. But here was a vast semicircular bosom in the bare white mountains, whose sides
slope down from the rounded summits with uniform regularity, without a crag, or peak, or patch of verdure
to relieve the monotony. The mountain-tops were now streaked with snow, but even this almost blended