THE CEDAR. 235 
Aimost every traveller who has visited Syria has ascended 
Mount Lebanon. Belon is perhaps the first; he records his 
visit in 1550. He says, “At a considerable height up the 
mountain, the traveller arrives at the monastery of the Virgin 
Mary, which is situated in a valley. Thence proceeding four 
miles farther up the mountain, he will arrive at the cedars— 
the Maronites, or the monks, acting as guides. The cedars 
stand in a valley, and not on the top of the mountain, and 
they are supposed to amount to twenty-eight in number, 
though it is difficult to count them, they being distant from 
each other a few paces. These the Archbishop of Damascus 
has endeavoured to prove to be the same that Solomon planted 
with his own hands, in the quincunx manner as they now 
stand. No other tree grows in the valley in which they are 
situated ; and it is generally so covered with snow as to be 
only accessible in summer.” 
We have the reports of successive travellers, at dates down 
to the present time. Ranwolf in 1570, Thevenot in 1655, 
Maundrell in 1696, Bruyer in 1702, La Roque in 1722, 
Pococke in 1745, and others, bear witness to the existence of 
the remains of an ancient forest in the highest part of the 
mountain, which ultimately became reduced to a single clump 
of very old and large cedar trees. 
Lamartine, who visited the cedars in 1832, says, “We 
alighted, and sat down under a rock to contemplate them. 
These trees are the most renowned natural monuments in the 
universe. Religion, poetry, and history have all equally 
celebrated them. The Arabs of all sects entertain a traditional 
veneration for these trees. They attribute to them not only 
a vegetative power which enables them to live eternally, but 
also an intelligence which causes them to manifest signs of 
wisdom and foresight, similar to those of instinct and reason 
in man. They are said to understand the changes of seasons ; 
they stir their vast branches as if they were limbs; they 
spread out or contract their boughs, inclining them towards 
heaven or towards earth, according as the snow prepares to 
fall or to melt. These trees diminish. in every succeeding 
