Ii6 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



which grow on the mountains of Libanus, in 

 the colder and northern tracts of Syria: but, 

 as I am informed by a curious traveller, there 

 remaining now not above twenty- four of those 

 stately trees in all those goodly forests, where 

 that mighty prince set four score thousand 

 hewers at work for the materials of one only 

 temple and palace, 'tis a pregnant example 

 what time and neglect will bring to ruin, if due 

 and continual care be not taken to propagate 

 timber." A comparison of Mr. Holman 

 Hunt's narrative with that of the seventeenth- 

 century traveller seems to show, when allow- 

 ance is made for an interval of two hundred 

 years, that both of them brought back accurate 

 reports. 



It is time to cry halt. It is not my purpose 

 to enumerate all the trees that we see often 

 or occasionally. One other, the false acacia, 

 a seventeenth-century importation from North 

 America, I will mention, if only because it is 

 one that I see whenever I look up from writing. 

 It is not much grown now in this country, 

 having lost its reputation for useful timber. It 

 is very different from the trees we have just 

 been considering, being light and graceful. 



