172 Gilpin's forest scenery. 



suggests au inquiry of very great interest. Are tlie 

 oldest of the species now standing on Mount Lebanon con- 

 temporaries of Solomon's Cedars, with the timber of which, 

 hewn from the mountain by fourscore thousand men, he 

 built the temple of Jerusalem ; or are they not ? Where 

 travellers and historians disagree, who shall decide ? 

 Decision' on this point, by which we mean conclusive 

 judgment and not mere dogmatic assertion, is doubtless 

 impossible. The subject is nevertheless, we repeat,, one 

 of extreme interest; and we need offer no apology for 

 alluding to the accounts and opinions of one or two 

 travellers. And first we will refer to Lamartine's account, 

 given in his ' Yoyage en Orient,' of his visit, made on 

 the 13th of April, 1833, to the Cedars of Lebanon. The 

 Arab Scheik of Eden, the last inhabited village of Leba- 

 non, had despatched, on the arrival of Lamartine, three 

 of his men on the road to the Cedars, to ascertain if the 

 snow would allow of the trees being approached. The 

 messengers reported on their return that access to them 

 was impossible, as there were fourteen feet of snow lying 

 in an intervening narrow valley, which afforded the only 

 way of approach. Lamartine, however, was determined to 

 get as near to the Cedars as possible, and accordingly, 

 accompanied by guides, he set out on the journey. The 

 party got to within about 500 or 600 yards of them, but 

 were then compelled to halt, the horses sinking up to their 

 shoulders in snow. 'We descended,' he says (we are 

 quoting from the translation of the ' Voyage en Orient,' 

 published in 1850 by Messrs. W. and R. Chambers), 'to 



