THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. 415 



a strong balsamic perfume, and hence the whole forest is 

 so perfumed with fragrance that a walk through it is 

 delightful. This is probably the "smell of Lebanon" 

 to which reference is made in Hosea xiv. 6. 



So durable was Cedar-wood considered by the ancients, 

 that, " to be worthy of being kept in Cedar," dignus cedro, 

 passed into a proverbial expression for anything thought 

 worthy of immortality. An oil extracted from it, and called 

 cedreum, was said to render imperishable all substances 

 which were anointed with it. 



The value of the timber of the Cedar as a building 

 material is now thought to have been overrated by the 

 ancients. It is reddish white, with streaks, and does not 

 seem to be much harder than deal. It is sweet-scented 

 only for the first year after being felled : it soon begins 

 to shrink and warp, and is said to be by no means durable. 

 But this is rather the character of English-grown Cedar 

 than of timber which has come to maturity in its native 

 mountains. 



Southey, in his " Thalaba," alludes in the following 

 lines to a singular superstitious belief entertained by the 

 Maronites of Mount Lebanon : 



" It was a Cedar-tree 



Which woke him from that deadly drowsiness ; 

 Its broad, round-spreading branches, when they felt 

 The snow, rose upward in a point to heaven, 

 And, standing in their strength erect, 

 Defied the baffled storm." 



"The Maronites say that the snows have no sooner 

 begun to fall than these Cedars, whose boughs, in their 

 infinite number, are all so equal in height that they 

 appear to have been shorn, and form, as it were, a sort of 

 wheel or parasol than these Cedars, I say, never fail at 

 that time to change their figure. The branches, which 

 before spread themselves, rise insensibly, gathering to- 

 gether, it may be said, and turn their points upwards 

 towards Heaven, forming altogether a pyramid. It is 

 Nature, they say, who inspires this movement and makes 



