LEBANON AND THE CEDARS. 29 



animals, they left Beyrut, being a party of eight riders, 

 ten baggage horses and mules, and an escort, following 

 the mountain route as marked on Van der Velde's map. 

 They went towards the bay through lanes filled with 

 Saccharum, Donax, Eose, Asclepias, and Kubus, crossed 

 the river Berytus, and thence wended their course along 

 the seashore. The setting sun and the grass-green of 

 the curling breakers as seen by transmitted light were 

 exquisite. Lebanon was sighted, and the travellers halted 

 at Ain el Houran, a cold, naked, desolate place, without Ain el 

 bush or tree, but tufts of Tragacanth, which yielded the 

 gum abundantly ; some flowers, and eternal Carduacese. 

 The upper part of Lebanon they found to consist of red- 

 bare rounded ridges, forming a great shallow amphi- 

 theatre : at the bottom of which is a broad flat, with low 

 undulating hillocks on which the Cedars stand. These The 

 form one small clump like a black speck in the great 

 amphitheatre, and there is no other tree or shrub visible 

 near them. The wood is intensely hard and close 

 grained. A fine log was sent to Kew. No doubt the 

 persistence of the trees is due to the peculiar nature of 

 the well-drained moist light soil of the stony moraine. 

 Below, they found some nice plants and Rhododendron 

 ponticum ; also the Tragacanth Astragalus, with the 

 gum oozing out : specimens of which were secured. 



The Cedars, about 400 trees of various ages, stand on 

 evident old glacial moraines, 6,000 feet in elevation, and 

 occupy five or six hillocks. They are fifty to eighty feet 

 high. The distinctive character of moraines consists in 

 their being blocks of limestone of various composition, 

 conglomerate, vesicular, and compact. Almost all Cardua- 

 ceae disappear above the Cedars. Berbery, Tragacanth, 

 and Acantholinum are the commonest shrubs, with 



