412 THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. 



and its name was written in Latin and stuck in front, to 

 tell all the world that it was something new and precious. 

 I 1 he soil was good and the tree grew ; grew till it no 

 longer needed the shelter of the tile, nor the dignified 

 protection of the Latin inscription; grew till it was 

 taller than its kind protector the traveller ; grew till it 

 could give shelter to a nurse and her child, tired of 

 walking about in the pleasant gardens, and glad of the 

 coolness of the thick dark branches. The Cedar grew 

 larger and larger, and became the noblest tree there. All 

 the birds of the garden could have assembled in its 

 branches. All the lions and tigers, and apes and bears, 

 and panthers and elephants of the great menagerie close 

 at hand, could have lain at ease under its shade. It 

 became the tree of all the trees in the wide garden that 

 the people loved the best ; there, each Thursday, when 

 the gardens were open to all the city, the blind people 

 from their asylum used to ask to be brought under the 

 Cedar ; there they would stand together and measure its 

 great trunk, and guess how large and wide must be its 

 branches. It was a pleasure to see them listening to the 

 sweet song of the birds overhead, and breathing in its 

 fragrant Eastern perfume. There was once a prison at the 

 end of these gardens, a dark and dismal and terrible place, 

 where the unfortunate and the guilty were all mixed 

 together in one wretched confusion. The building was a 

 lofty one, divided into many storeys, and, by the time you 

 reached the top, you were exhausted and breathless. The 

 cells were as dreary and comfortless there as the more 

 accessible ones below, and yet those who could procure a 

 little money, by any means, gladly paid it to be allowed to 

 rent one of theee topmost cells. What was it that made 

 them value this weary height 1 It was, that beyond that 

 forest of chimneys and desert plain of slates, they could 

 see the Cedar of Lebanon ! His cheeks pressed against 

 the rusty bars, the poor debtor would pass hours looking 

 upon the Cedar. It was the prisoner's garden ; and he 



