CEDAR OF LEBANON. 529 



about two hundred in number, all fresh and green. There 

 are," he adds, " about twenty that are very large, and 

 among them several that have trunks from ten to twelve 

 feet in diameter, with branches of a corresponding size, 

 each of them like large trees spreading outwards from the 

 parent stock, and overshadowing a considerable piece of 

 ground."" About four years afterwards, Lebanon was 

 visited by Dr. Pariset, who, in a letter published in the 

 " Histoire du Cedre," by Loiseleur des Longchamps, states, 

 that the large trees were then not above twelve, the smaller 

 from four to five hundred in number. In a.d. 1832 they 

 were again visited by Lamartine,* who passes some re- 

 marks upon their decrease, from the time of their having 

 been first visited by the earlier travellers, and says there 

 are now but seven of the ancient trees remaining ; these, 

 however, from their enormous size and general appearance, 

 he thinks may have existed in Biblical times. One of the 

 latest accounts we have to notice, is that of M. Laure,-f* 

 who visited Mount Lebanon, in company with the Prince 

 de Joinville, in September, 1836, and he states that fifteen 

 out of the sixteen trees mentioned by Maundrell are still in 

 existence, though all are more or less in a state of decay, 

 and he adds, that there is not one young Cedar in all the 

 wood or grove of El Herz6. 



The precise period of the introduction of the Cedar into 

 England seems undetermined ; for though Aiton, in the 

 " Hortus Kewensis," places it in a.d. 1683, the date of the 

 planting of the trees in Chelsea Botanic Garden, where two 

 out of the four originally planted are still in existence, other 

 circumstances, and amongst them the size of these very 



* Pelerinage a Jerusalem, vol. ii. p. 355. 



t Laurc, Cultivation Provinqal, p. 317, quoted in Loiseleur des Longchamps' 

 " Histoire du Cedre." 



2 M 



