78 



SYLYAN SKETCHES. 



before Maundrell, who reckoned sixteen, besides a few 

 small ones. 



The few trees yet left on Mount Lebanon are preserved 

 with a religious strictness. On the day of the Trans- 

 figuration, the patriarch repairs in procession to these trees, 

 and celebrates the festival called the Feast of Cedars. 



There is little doubt but these trees are now far more 

 numerous in England than in their native place. Miller 

 expresses surprise that the cultivation of the Cedar was 

 so long neglected in this country, when it would be so 

 ornamental on barren and bleak mountains ; where few 

 others would flourish so well as this, which is a native of 

 the colder parts of Mount Libanus, where the snow lies 

 nearly all the year. " That these trees are of quick 

 growth,"" continues he, " is evident from four of them in 

 the Botanic Garden at Chelsea, which, as I have been cre- 

 dibly informed, were planted there in the year 1683, and 

 at that time were not above three feet high. Two of 

 these trees were, in 1766, upwards of twelve feet and a 

 half in girth, at two feet above the ground, and their 

 branches extended more than twenty feet on every side 

 their trunks ; which branches, though they were produced 

 twelve or fourteen feet above the surface, did, at every 

 termination, hang very near the ground, and thereby 

 afford a goodly shade in the hottest season of the year."" 



In another passage, he describes the character of their 

 growth in a more particular manner : — " These trees are 

 by many people kept as pyramids, and sheared as yews, 

 &c., in which form they lose their greatest beauty ; for 

 the extension of the branches is very singular in this 

 tree — the ends of the shoots for the most part declining, 

 and thereby shov/ing their upper surface ; which is con- 

 stantly clothed with green leaves in so regular a manner, 



