1 8 
CEDRUS LIBANI 
est mont de liesse et jocundite car sur ces monticules croissent les vins excellens que communement sont 
cause de joye inductive a liesse.” But he does not say anything about the numbers of the Cedars.* * * § ** 
The next is Martinus a Baumgarten in Braidenbach, a German knight, who passed and saw the 
snowy peaks of Mount Lebanon, in a pilgrimage through the Holy Land, on 31st January 1508, and 
speaks of its being full of Cedars, Pines, and other noble trees; but he does not appear to have visited the 
Grove, nor does he mention the number of the trees.f 
There is a blank of above forty years before we have further accounts. Those we next get are from 
Pierre Belon, or Bellonius, previously mentioned. When he visited the Grove he counted the Cedars, 
•* 
and tells us that they are supposed to amount to twenty-eight in number, although it is difficult to count 
them, they being a few paces distant from each other (Belon, op. cit., p. 153). 
The next references which we have met with are a quotation in Celcius, in which it is stated that 
Christopher Fischtner, in 1556, counted twenty-five trees,! and that Turner, in 1565, also found the trees 
to be twenty-five in number. We have been unable to verify either of these statements, not having 
discovered the works from which they are taken. 
About the same time (1566) the Grove was visited by Christopher Furer of Haimendorf, whose 
quality does not appear; but from his name, and. the city (Nuremberg) where his book was published in 
.1621, we imagine him to have been a German; and from his Latinity and knowledge of Pliny, either a 
priest or an educated gentleman (according.to the learning of the time). “The crests of Lebanon,” says 
he, “ although covered with snow, have still to this day some Cedars, in number about twenty-five, 
regarding which a vulgar belief has obtained, that the Cedars of Lebanon cannot be counted, which 
arises from there being sometimes several trunks to the same tree, so that to those counting them the 
trees appear now fewer.” § 
In 1574, Rauwolf speaks of twenty-four trees, and, what is important, he states that he looked for 
but could find no young ones.jl 
This absence of young ones gives us a date from which to start for the smaller specimens, now 
composing the major part of the Grove. They must be younger than three hundred years. 
The next authority in point of date is Johannes Jacobi, who is said by Celcius to have counted the trees 
in 1579, and to have found twenty-six, of which two were dead, and one had only a single branch alive.1T 
Radzivil, a (Polish?) prince or duke, and a knight of Jerusalem, visited the Cedars while on a 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in 1583, of which he published an account in 1614. He also found the trees 
twenty-four in number/"'" 
Signor Zuallardo (or Zuallart, as he is styled by his French contemporaries), an Italian knight of 
the most Holy Sepulchre, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1586, and visited Lebanon on the. way. 
He says, “ Here still grow some Cedars, of those of which many were used in constructing the temple 
and other buildings which the kings, David and Solomon, built in J erusalem, and of which twenty-three 
others, very old, still stand, spreading wide their branches.”tf 
The Seigneur de Villamont visited the Cedars in 1590. In reference to the number of trees he 
says : “In consequence of what I had been told, that in counting them no one could ascertain the number, 
I wished to try the experiment myself three or four times, on all of which I have found always more or less. 
At the same time, I should say that, so far as I could judge, there are about twenty-four or twenty-five.” tt 
* Le Huen, Grand Voyage de Jerusalem. Paris, 1517. Feuill. 38 and 39. 
f Martini a Baumgarten in Braitenbach, equitis Germani nobilissimi et fortissimi, Peregrinatio in Aegyptum, Arabiam, Palestinam et Syriam, &c., curante Donaveri. Nurem¬ 
berg, 1594, p- 128. 
$ Celcius Olave, Hierobotanicon. 1748, i. p. 36. 
§ Christophori Fureri ab Haimendorf, &c., Itinerarium /Egypti Arabiae Palaestinae Syriae aliarumque Regionum Orientale. Nuremberg, 1621, p. 102. 
|| Leonharti RauwolfFen der Arknen Doctorn eigentliche Bescreibung der Reise um die Morgenlande, 1582, p. 280. 
U Celcius, op. et loc. cit. 
** Ierosolymitana Peregrinatio illustrissimi principis Nicolai Christophori Radzivili Ducis Olicae et Niesvisii Palatini Vilnensis. Translated out of the Polish tongue by Thos. 
Weter. Antwerp, 1614, p. 27. 
ft II devotissimo Viaggio di Gerusalemme fatto et discretto in Sei libri dal Sig. Giovanni Zuallardo, l’anno 1586. Rome, 1587, p. 289 a. 
+t Les Voyages du Seigneur de Villamont, Chevalier de l’Ordre de Hierusalem. Arras, 1598. 
F ather 
