112 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



wilderness of verdure, concealing the sky from the 

 eyes of the traveller, who passes on in darkness under 

 these vaults impenetrable to the rays of the sun. From 

 the height of a lofty mountain-top the sight is still 

 more imposing. The level surfaces of the trees then 

 look like a broad dark green, or almost blue meadow, 

 sown with egg-shaped purple cones. The eye is lost 

 in an abyss of green, at the bottom of which an invis- 

 ible torrent brawls along. Often an isolated group 

 attracts the attention ; as we draw near, expecting to 

 see a number of trees, we are astonished to iind that 

 we stand before a single tree, cut down in times of 

 yore by the Romans or the first Arab conquerors. 

 The tree has sent up new shoots, enormous branches 

 have grown from the old stock, and each is a tree of 

 full-grown size, while vast fans of verdure spread out 

 on all sides from the mutilated trunk and cast their 

 shadows far across the earth. Some of these cedars 

 are still standing, though dead ; the bark has fallen off, 

 and they stretch their bleached bare arms in all direc- 

 tions. The cedars of Africa still await their painter. 

 A Marilhat has worthily painted the cedars of Lebanon ; 

 but his successors are content to paint over and over 

 again the portraits X)f a few oaks of home forests, which 

 the connoisseurs recognize as old friends in every ex- 

 hibition. Eminent artists spend their lives in repro- 

 ducing the same forms, while the venerable cedars 

 live and die unknown in the gorges of the Atlas, 

 where their beauty is admired only by the occasional 

 traveller that ventures into these mountains." 



