258 SYLVA BOOK ii 



temple, was said to be of this material also, as was 

 most of the timber-work of that glorious structure : 

 Thoug has to the idol TOW AtoTreroOe mention'd in the Acts, 

 (when the mob rose up against the apostle) some will 

 have to be of ebony, others of a vine-tree, the most 

 unlikely of all the rest fit for the carver. The sittim 

 mention'd in Holy Writ, is thought to have been a 

 kind of cedar of which most precious utensils were 

 formed. 



As to the magnitude of cedar-trees : We read or 

 divers whose bodies eight or nine persons could not 

 embrace, (as we shall shew hereafter) not here to let 

 pass what Josephus relates Solomon planted in Judea, 

 who doubtless try'd many experiments of this nature, 

 none being more kingly than of planting for posterity : 

 I do not speak of those growing on the mountains of 

 Libanon, in the northern and colder tracts of Syria ; 

 or what store those forests of them then afforded : 

 But, as we are inform'd by that curious traveller l 

 Ranwolsius, (since confirm'd also by the virtuoso, 

 Monconys) there were not remaining above twenty 

 five of those stately trees, and since they were there, 

 but sixteen of that small number, as the ingen- 

 ious Mr. Mandevill reports in his journey from 

 Aleppo to Jerusalem : There was yet, he says, abund- 

 ance of young trees, and a single old one of prodigious 

 size, twelve yards and six inches in the girth ; I sup- 

 pose the same describ'd by the late traveller Bruyn, 

 who speaking of the shadow of this umbragious tree, 

 alludes to that of Hosea, Cap. xiv. Ver. 5. which 'tis 

 not improbable might be one of those yet remaining, 

 where that heroick prince employ'd fourscore thou- 

 sand hewers at work, for the materials of one only 



1 In Itin. 



