24- J 2 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART 111. 



sumed to have existed in biblical times. Around these ancient witnesses of 

 ages long since past, there still remains a little grove of yellower cedars, ap- 

 pearing to me to form a group of from 400 to 500 trees or shrubs. Every year, 

 in the month of June, the inhabitants of Beschierai, of Eden, of Kanobin, 

 and the other neighbouring valleys and villages, climb up to these cedars, and 

 celebrate mass at their feet. How many prayers have resounded under these 

 branches ; and what more beautiful canopy for worship can exist ! " Ge- 

 ramb was on Mount Lebanon in 1832, and reckoned about the same number 

 of large trees as Pariset. (Pelcrinagc a Jerusalem, &c., vol. ii. p. 355.) 

 M. Laure, an officer in the French marine, in company with the Prince de 

 Joinville, visited Mount Lebanon in September, 1836. " After having quitted 

 the village of Eden, the chief place of the Maronites," says M. Laure, " and 

 having followed for two or three hours a path bordered sometimes by cul- 

 tivated fields and plantations of mulberries, but more frequently by rocks, 

 we arrived at El-Herze, an almost level space or plain entirely surrounded 

 by the steep peaks of the mountains. In this space, or rather hollow, 

 are the celebrated cedars; and the circuit, not of the forest but of the 

 plain, is not more than three or four miles. Fifteen of the sixteen old 

 cedars mentioned by Maundrell are still alive, but are all more or less in 

 a state of decay ; and one of them is remarkable for three immense trunks, 

 proceeding from the same stump, at a short distance above the soil. Another, 

 one of the healthiest of the old trees, though perhaps the smallest, measured 

 33ft. French (35ft. 9 in. English) in circumference. All the trees are much 

 furrowed by lightning, which seems to strike them more or less every year. 

 In the middle of these old trees are about forty other cedars comparatively 

 young, though the trunk of the smallest of them is from 10ft. to 12ft. in 

 circumference. At the base of eight or nine of the old cedars are altars 

 constructed with large and rough stones, which were formerly used by the 

 inhabitants of the Maronite villages, who, headed by their pastor, went to El- 

 Herze' on the day of the Transfiguration. At this festival all the priests said 

 mass at the same time, each priest officiating at the foot of the cedar belong- 

 ing to his village. Disputes having, however, arisen from this practice, the 

 patriarch of the Maronites has made a new arrangement ; and now, though 

 the Maronites still continue on the festival of the Transfiguration to repair to 

 El-Herze, only one mass is celebrated, which is performed on the altar of a 

 different cedar every year, in order that the trees of all the villages in turn 

 may enjoy the same privilege. There is not one young cedar in all the wood 

 of El-Herze. The soil of the forest of Lebanon, on which there was not a 

 single blade of grass growing in September, 1836, is covered to the thickness 

 of half a foot with the fallen leaves, the cones, and scales of the cedars, so 

 that it is almost impossible for the seeds of the trees to reach the ground and 

 germinate." (Laure in the Cultlvateur Provencal, p. 317. to 323, as quoted in 

 Deslongchamp* s Histolre du Cedre* p. 63.) 



The date of the introduction of the cedar into England is uncertain. Aiton, 

 in the Hortus Kewensis, makes it 1683, the date of the planting of the trees 

 in the Chelsea Botanic Garden ; but, as these trees were 3 ft. high when 

 planted, the introduction of the tree must at least be placed somewhat sooner, 

 even supposing these trees to have been the first planted in Europe. The 

 tree at Enfield is, however, probably as old. (See p. 48.) This tree, and the 

 equally celebrated one at Hendon, blown down in 1779 (see p. 57.), are said 

 to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth ; but it is not likely that the cedar 

 was introduced till long after her reign, as Turner does not mention it in his 

 Names of Herbes ; and Gerard and Parkinson, though they describe it in detail, 

 speak of it as a plant that they have never seen. It is most probable that Evelyn 

 was the introducer of the cedar, as he says, after praising it as a " beautiful 

 and stately tree, clad in perpetual verdure," that it grows " even where the 

 snow lies, as I am told, almost half the year ; for so it does on the mountains 

 of Libanus, from whence I have received cones and seeds of those few remaining 

 trees. Why, then, should it not thrive in old England ? I know not, save for 

 want of industry and trial." It is extremely improbable that a man so fond 



