ii.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 35 



officers, who at first insisted on emptying the 

 strange pot, to see whether any contraband goods 

 were therein concealed. 



With much difficulty he prevailed upon them to 

 spare his bantling, and succeeded in carrying it in 

 triumph to Paris, where it flourished in the Jardin 

 des Plantes, and grew until it reached one hundred 

 years of age, and eighty feet in height. In 1837 

 it was cut down to make room for a railway, and 

 now the hissing steam-engine passes over the place 

 where it stood. 



Nor is the Cedar mentioned in any of the Floras 

 of Greece or Italy, and if it had existed in either 

 country in the days of Theophrastus or Pliny, it 

 could not have failed to be noticed by them for 

 its peculiar and noble appearance. 



Although called the Cedar of Lebanon, it does 

 not seem to be so abundant in that locality as in 

 some others. TchihatchefF, a Russian traveller, 

 speaks of vast forests of it on Mount Taurus in 

 Asia Minor, whilst on Lebanon only a very few of 

 the older trees survive; and Dr. Hooker, in 1860, 

 counted in all no more than about 400 trees, of 

 which only 15 exceeded fifteen feet in girth b . 



Nor do the qualities of the tree correspond to 

 those attributed to the Cedar of the ancients. 

 Whatever may have been the durability of the 

 wood of which Solomon's temple was built, this 



b Mr. Tristram, however, a more recent traveller in the Holy Land, 

 appears to have discovered a new locality in the Mountains of Lebanon, 

 where this Cedar is more abundant. 



D 2 



