THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. 59 



within w as carved with knops and flowers : all was 

 cedar, there was no stone seen." Thus writes the 

 sacred liistorian, who mentions that the same mo- 

 narch had a palace of cedar in the forest of Lebanon. 

 Ancient writers notice that the ships of Sesostris, 

 the Egyptian conqueror, one of them two hundred 

 and eighty cubits long, were formed of this timber ; 

 as was also the gigantic statue of Diana in the temple 

 at E])hesus. Some difficulty, no doubt, exists, with 

 regard to the ancient history of this celebrated tree, 

 — there being other trees, still named cedars, which, 

 though somewhat resembling them, do not belong to 

 the pine family at all ; as the white cedar, which is a 

 cypress ; and the red, which is a juniper. 



In addition to the durability of its timber, the cedar 

 is, in its appearance, the most majestic of trees ; and 

 when it stands alone in a situation \vorthy of it, it is 

 hardly possible to conceive a finer vegetable orna- 

 ment. Its height in this country has seldom equalled 

 the taller of the larches, though it has nearly ap- 

 proached to it ; but the very air of the tree impresses 

 one with the idea of its comparative immortality. 

 There is a firmness in the bark and a stabilit^n the 

 tnank, in the mode in which that lays hold of the 

 ground, and in the form of the branches and their 

 insertion into the trunk, not found in any other 

 pine, scarcely in any other tree. The foliage, too, 

 is superior to that of any other of the tribe, each 

 branch being perfect in its form : the points of the 

 leaves spread upwards into beautifiil little tufts ; and 

 the whole upper surface of the branch, which droops 

 in a graceful curve toward the extremity, having the 

 semblance of velvet. The colour is also fine ; it is a 

 rich green, wanting the bluish tint of the pine and fir, 

 and the lurid and gloomy one of the cypress. 



The description of the cedar of Lebanon by the 

 prophet Ezekiel is fine and true; — " Behold the As- 



