CHAP. CXIII.

coni'feile. ce'drus.

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up to the very summit of Mount Lebanon; passing over the snow, which wasfrozen hard. These mountains are not inhabited higher up than the Carme-lite Convent; nor all the way down on the east side, which is steep, and a bar-ren soil. I observed the cypresses are the only trees that grow towards thetop, which, being nipped by the cold, do not grow spirally, but like small oaks;and it may be concluded that this tree bears the cold better than any other.”(Pococke's Description of the East, vol. ii. parti.; Obs. on Syria, p. 105.)Kinneir, in 1813, found cedars no where but on Mount Lebanon, and their num-ber, he says, amounts to 400 or 500. ( Travels in Asia Minor, Sf-c., in 1813-14.)In Wolff’s Missionary Journal, 1823; and 1824, he states that, on visitingMount Lebanon, he counted 13 large and ancient cedars, and numeroussmaller ones, making in the whole 387 trees. Buckingham, in 1825, says: —“ Leaving Biskerry on our right, we ascended for an hour over light snow,until we came to the Arz-el Libenien, or the cedars of Lebanon. Thesetrees form a little grove by themselves, as if planted by art, and are seated ina hollow, amid rocky eminences all round them, at the foot of the ridge whichforms the highest peak of Lebanon. There are at present, I should think,about 200 in number, all fresh and green. They look, on approaching them,like a grove of firs; but, on coming nearer, are found to be in general muchlarger, though the foliage still keeps its resemblance. There are about 20that are very large; and, among them, several that have trunks from 10ft.to 12ft. in diameter, with branches of a corresponding size, each of them

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like large trees, extending outwards from the parent stock, and overshadowinga considerable piece of ground.” ( Travels among the Arab Tribes, p.475.)The general appearance of these cedars, about the time Buckingham sawthem, is represented in fig. 2274. Dr. Pariset visited Mount Lebanon inAugust, 1829, and has given some account of the cedars in a letter pub-lished in Loiseleur Deslongchamps’s Histoire du Cedre. There are not, hesays, above a dozen large trees, but there may be from 400 to 500 smallones. Lamartine, who visited the trees in 1832, says: — “We alightedand sat down under a rock to contemplate them. These trees are themost renowned natural monuments in the universe: religion, poetry, andhistory, have all equally celebrated them. The Arabs of all sects entertaina traditional veneration for these trees. They attribute to them not onlya vegetative power, which enables them to live eternally, but also an intel-ligence, which causes them to manifest signs of wisdom and foresight, si-milar to those of instinct and reason in man. They are said to understandthe changes of seasons ; they stir their vast branches as if they were limbs ;they spread out or contract their boughs, inclining them towards heaven ortowards earth, according as the snow prepares to fall or to melt. These treesdiminish in every succeeding age. Travellers formerly counted 30 or 40;more recently, 17 ; more recently still, only 12. There are now but 7.These, however, from their size and general appearance, may be fairly pre-