122 THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. 
tants. But they are gradually diminishing in num- 
bers, and almost every few years witnesses the 
removal of one or more of these interesting relics, 
which yield to decay that strength which has defied 
the blasts of ages. 
Of those whose appearance warrants the belief 
that they are the very Cedars under whose shade the 
Patriarchs of old have rested, in 1550 there remained 
about 28, in 1745 there were but 15. Twelve were 
recently counted by a traveller (Lord Lindsay), who, 
speaking of them, remarks, that he and his com- 
panions halted under one of the largest of them, 
inscribed on one side with the name of Lamartine. 
The grove was composed of trees of various ages 
growing together ; ‘One of them,” he says, “by no 
means the largest, measured 194 feet in circumfer- 
ence, and in repeated instances, two, three, or four 
large trunks spring from a single root. Of the giants 
there are several standing very near each other, all 
on the same hill; three more a little further on, 
nearly in a line with them; and in a second walk of 
discovery, I had the pleasure of detecting two others, 
low down on the northern edge of the grove. Lamar- 
tine’s tree is 49 feet in circumference; and the 
largest of my two on the southern slope is 63 feet, 
following the irregularities of the bark.” 
This Cedar grows not only on the mountains of 
Lebanon, but also on Mounts Amanus and Taurus, 
in Asia Minor, in some parts of Africa, and on the 
islands of Cyprus and Crete. It loves cold and 
