CELEBEATED PLANTERS. 303 



above the Mediterranean, and around it are gathered 

 the very tallest and greyest heads of Lebanon. The 

 forest is not large, not more than 500 trees, great and 

 small, grouped irregularly on the sides of shallow 

 ravines, which mark the birthplace of the Khadtsha or 

 Holy Eiver. I counted 443 trees, great and small, 

 and this cannot be far from the true number. This, 

 however, is not uniform. Some are struck down by 

 lightning, broken by enormous loads of snow, or torn 

 to fragments by tempests. Even the sacrilegious axe 

 is sometimes lifted against them. But on the other 

 hand, young trees are constantly springing up from 

 the roots of old ones,^ and from seeds of ripe cones. 

 I have seen these infant cedars in thousands just 

 springing from the soil ; but as the grove is wholly 

 unprotected, and greatly frequented both by men and 

 animals, they are quickly destroyed. This fact, how- 

 ever, proves that the number might be increased ad 

 libitum. Beyond a doubt, the whole of these upper 

 terraces of Lebanon might again be covered with 

 groves of this noble tree, and furnish timber enough 

 not only for Solomon's temple and the house of the 

 forest of Lebanon, but for all the houses along this 

 coast. We have seen larger trees every way, and 

 much taller, on the banks of the Ohio ; and the loftiest 

 cedar might take shelter under the lowest branches of 

 California's vegetable glories. Still they are respect- 

 able trees: the girth of the largest is more than 41 feet ; 

 the height of the highest may be 100. The largest, 

 however, part into two or three, only a few feet from 

 the ground. Their age is very uncertain; nor are they 



^ Mr Thomson is here evidently under a misapprehension as to the 

 cedar growing from suckers or stools, as it is only propagated from 



