HO THE WONDERS OF V !:<! STATION. 



en giant trees are, perhaps, the only living witnesses 

 to-day of Biblical times. 



Mount Lebanon separates the Holy Land from 

 Syria, above whose loftiest mountains it towers. The 

 range has the form of a horse-shoe, and measures not 

 less than three thousand miles in length. To the 

 south is Palestine, to the north Armenia, to the east 

 Arabia, to the west the Syrian Sea. From Tripoli to 

 Damascus, the slopes of the Lebanon are not far from 

 the sea ; at certain points they even touch the shore. 

 The eastern part is known among the Greeks as the 

 Anti-Lebanon. 



The mountains rise the one above the other and pre- 

 sent four diiferent zones. According to travellers, the 

 soil of the first zone produces grain crops and is rich 

 in fruit-trees. The second zone is simply a belt of 

 naked and sterile rocks. The third, in spite of its 

 elevation, is covered with evergreens ; and the softness 

 of its temperature, its gardens, its orchards, filled with 

 the finest fruit in all Syria, and the brooks which 

 water it, make this a kind of earthly paradise. The 

 fourth zone is in the clouds ; and the perpetual snow, 

 with which it is covered, has given the name of Leban 

 (white) to these mountains. It is on one of the sum- 

 mits of this fourth zone that are still to be seen the 

 cedars of Scripture. 



" What prayers have ascended from beneath these 

 branches !" exclaims the poet ; " and where is there on 

 earth a more beautiful temple than this one, so near 

 to heaven itself? What dais more majestic and more 

 beautiful than this last plateau of the Lebanon ! 



