OF FOREST-TREES. 



11 



Cedar near twelve hundred years old ; and at Saguntum in Spain, in a cer- cHAP. I. 



tain oratory consecrated to Diana, there were seen, in the days of Pliny, 

 beams of Juniper, that had been placed there by the founders of the 

 temple, who came from Zant two centuries before the destruction of 

 Troy. The great Sesostris, king of Egypt, built a vessel of Cedar of two 

 hundred and eighty cubits, all over gilded without and within : and the 

 statue of the goddess in the famous Ephesine temple was said to be of 

 this material also, as was most of the timber work of that glorious 

 structure. Though as to the idol, mentioned in the Acts, (when the 

 mob rose up against the Apostle,) some will have it to be of Ebony, others, 

 of a Vine-tree, the most unlikely of all the rest for the carver. The 

 Shittim, mentioned in holy writ, is thought to have been a kind of Cedar, 

 of which most precious utensils were formed. 



As to the magnitude of Cedar-trees, we read of divers whose bodies 

 eight or nine persons could not embrace, as we shall shew hereafter ; 

 not here to let pass what Josephus relates Solomon planted in Judea, 

 who doubtless tried many experiments of this nature, none being more 

 kingly than that of planting for posterity. I do not speak of those 

 growing on the mountains of Lebanon, in the northern and colder tracts 

 of Syria, or what store those forests of them then afforded. But, as we 

 are informed by that curious traveller Rauwolfius *, since confirmed also 

 by the Virtuoso Monconys, there were not remaining above twenty-five 

 of those stately trees ; and since they Avere there, but sixteen of that 

 small number, as the ingenious Mr. Maundrell reports in his journey 

 from Aleppo to Jerusalem : There was yet, says he, abundance of young 

 trees, and a single old one of a prodigious size, twelve yards and six 

 inches in the girt, and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its boughs. — 

 I suppose the same described by the late traveller Bruyn, who, speaking 

 of the shadow of this umbrageous tree, alludes to that of Hosea xiv. 5, 

 which, it is not improbable, might be one of those yet remaining in the 

 place, where that heroic Prince Solomon employed fourscore thousand 

 hewers at work for the materials of only one temple and a palace ; 

 a pregnant instance what time, negligence, and war will bring to ruin. 

 But to return to what is said of their present number ; Le Bruyn, whom 

 just now we mentioned, makes them thirty-live or thirty-six, for he could 

 not exactly tell ; and pretends, like our Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, 

 none could ever yet agree in their number. 



