26 
CEDRUS LIBANI 
vast tree—form a verdant dome through which the vertical sun penetrates not. I delighted in cherishing 
the persuasion of their full antiquity, as I mused on Israel’s history, and thought of the glory of 
Lebanon. As I gazed upon them I felt that description must always sound like exaggeration. I have seen 
noble Cedars in Europe—the growth of centuries—but compared with those of Lebanon they are 
but saplings.” # 
In 1842, Lord Castlereagh says: “There are about two hundred trees in all, occupying a knoll 
which, taking the irregularity of surface into account, covers about six or seven acres. There are one or 
two stragglers, but at no great distance from the clump. . . . Some of the trees bear the names upon their 
bark of Laborde, Burckhardt, and Lamartine, with several others. The Cedar of Lamartine was measured, 
and we found it to be above 24 feet in girth. There are not above seven or eight of them magnates, but a 
goodly supply of smaller ones surrounds them ; and there seems no chance at present of the race dying away 
or being destroyed.” f 
Mr. Kinglake, the author of “ Eothen,” thus speaks of the Cedars in that work: “ The group of 
Cedars remaining on this point of 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 mountain’s side, and many of them are gnarled in a way that implies great age; 
but except those signs, I saw nothing in their appearance or conduct that tended to prove them contempo¬ 
raries of the Cedars employed in Solomon’s temple” (Eothen, 1st edition, 1844, p. 307). What other 
signs Mr. Kinglake could expect to find of their contemporaneity with Solomon, except the appearance 
of great age, he does not say. 
The Rabbi Joseph Schwarz writes in 1850, and says that “ Cedars El Arz are found nowhere except 
on Mount Lebanon. But in Syria, in the vicinity of Aleppo, there are likewise Cedars, though in very 
limited numbers; ” but he does not give his authority for the statement. 
Mr. James Laird Patterson says of them, in June 1850 : “ The Cedars appear about two hundred in 
number, of which some eight or ten are very large. We measured three of the largest, and found them 
respectively 37 feet 10 inches, 28 feet, and 27 feet in girth.” § 
Van der Velde, whose map of Palestine, by the way, is the best which has been yet published, 
naturally examined the whole country minutely, while procuring materials for his map. He spent a 
considerable time in the Holy Land in 1851 and 1852 ; and he says of the Cedars: “You know from the 
narratives of different travellers that the old Cedars, now only twelve in number, stand on a broad cleft of 
Lebanon at 6300 feet above the sea. You know that those venerable trees, perhaps the oldest in the 
world, and which some think must have sprung up soon after the Flood, are giants above all other trees 
growing, and that this dozen is surrounded by an aftergrowth of 400 younger Cedars, more or less.” || 
Dr. Robinson, the author of the well-known and able “ Biblical Researches,” visited Lebanon and the 
Cedars in 1852. He says: “The Cedars, which still bear their antient name, stand mostly upon four 
small contiguous rocky knolls, within a compass of less than 40 rods in diameter. They form a thick 
forest, without underbrush. The older trees have each several trunks, and thus spread themselves widely 
around ; but most of the others are cone-like in form, and do not throw out their boughs laterally to any 
great extent. Some few trees stand alone on the outskirts of the Grove ; and one especially on the south 
is large and very beautiful. With this exception, none of the trees came up to my ideal of the graceful 
beauty of the Cedar of Lebanon, such as I had formerly seen it in the Jardin des Plantes. I made no 
attempt to count the trees ; probably no two persons would fully agree in respect to the old ones or in the 
number of the whole. Yet I should be disposed to concur in the language of Burckhardt, who says, ‘ Of 
* A Pastor’s Memorial of the principal Localities of the Holy Land, by the Rev. George Fisk, LL.D. 1843, p. 395. 
+ Lord Castlereagh’s Diary of a Journey to Damascus, 1847, p. 272. 
| A Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine, by Rabbi Joseph Schwarz. 1850, p. 306. 
§ Journal of a Tour through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece, 1852, p. 311. 
|| Narrative of a Journey through Syria and Palestine in 1851 and 1852, by C. W. N. Van der Velde. 1854, p. 478. 
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