174 Gilpin's foeest scenery. 



would tell us, if they could speak, of so many empires, 

 religions and human races swept away — there still remains 

 a small forest of younger Cedars, which appear to me to 

 form a group of 400 or 500 trees or bushes/ Mr. 

 Kinglake in his ' Bothen ' appears to discredit the belief 

 that the existing trees have survived from the days of 

 Solomon. He says;— 'The group of Cedars remaining 

 on this part of the Lebanon is held sacred by the Greek 

 Church, on account of a prevailing notion that the trees 

 were standing at the time when the Temple of Jerusalem 

 was built. They occupy three or four acres on the moun- 

 tain's side, and many of them are gnarled in a way that 

 implies great age ; but, except these signs, I saw nothing 

 in their appearance or conduct that tended to prove them 

 contemporaries of the Cedars employed in Solomon's 

 Temple.' In his work 'The Crescent and the Cross,' 

 Eliot Warburton gives a description of his visit to the 

 historic Cedars. He maintains that there were, when he 

 visited the Lebanon forest, twelve of the old trees remain- 

 ing. His words are, — ' There are twelve old trees, or 

 Saints as they are called, being supposed to be coeval 

 with those that furnished timber for Solomon's Temple — 

 yes, twelve, I will maintain it, notwithstanding all the 

 different computations on the subject, are there standing 

 now. It is natural that there should be diversity of 

 opinion, perhaps, as the forest consists of about one thou- 

 sand trees, among which there is a succession of all ages ; 

 nevertheless, there is the apostolic number, first-rate in 

 size and venerable appearance. The largest of these is 



