CEDRUS LI BAN I 
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28 
with the white limestone, and gave little variety to the scene. In the* very centre of this vast bosom I saw 
a solitary black speck, apparently out of place. It Was the Grove of the Cedars. On approaching the brow 
of the hill, where my eye took in the sublime glen of the Radishes, with its terraced banks and numerous 
villages peeping out from the dark masses of foliage, this view was finer and more varied, but still a long 
naked slope separated the Cedars from the grandeur of the glen below. . 
“It was not till I had entered the precincts of the sacred Grove that feelings of disappointment 
vanished. Then the beautiful fandike branches of the younger trees, the gracefulness of their pyramidal 
forms, and, above all, the huge trunks of the patriarchs themselves, which one must walk round to form 
a true conception of their vast proportions, excited feelings of unmingled admiration. And when all the 
associations of their high antiquity, antient glory, and sacred interest swelled upon my memory, the 
wondrous attraction that had for centuries drawn crowds of pilgrims to this lonely spot from the ends 
of the earth, became at once manifest. The Pine groves of the Metu are far more picturesque, and the 
oak forests of Hermon and Bashan are far more extensive and beautiful; but Cedar Teams were laid on 
the Lord’s house at Jerusalem, and 'Cedar forests were, the glory of Lebanon, as Lebanon was the glory 
of the Land of Israel. 
“ Only a few, perhaps a dozen, very antient trees now remain. There are, however, many others of 
very respectable dimensions and antiquity, some of which are four or five feet in diameter. The whole 
Grove is compact, the trees growing close together on the summit and sides of a little limestone knoll. In 
the centre a small rude chapel has been constructed within the last few years, the roof of which is wholly 
of Cedar wood. In a chamber attached to it resides the deacon, who is the recognised guardian of the 
place, and expects from all travellers some little present in exchange for a few cones or a fragment of 
a branch which the winter’s snow may have broken down. I was present during the celebration of 
morning mass by two stranger bishops who had just arrived. During the performance the deacon brought 
me the traveller’s book, with a pencil, from off the altar ! He requested me to write my name in it. This 
is certainly a more rational mode of recording a visit than the sacrilegious practice of carving the letters on 
the bark of some noble tree. In fact, the trunks of all the most antient trees, with one exception, are now 
all hacked, hewn, and disfigured by this barbarous propensity of travellers. There may be read by the 
curious, names of illustrious savans, joined with elsewhere unheard-of individuals. Noble lords, too, figure 
beside the autographs of their dragomen ; and other associations equally ennobling are formed to excite the 
amusement and indignation of posterity.” * 
The writer of a “ Bundle of Old Letters ” in Good Words gives the following graphic account of the 
Grove. Although without date, from the allusions in some of the letters (as, for example, to the siege of 
Sebastopol, then going on), we assign to them a date of about 1854: “About 400 of them remain, but 
only a few of them heard the sound of Hiram and his axe-bearing host. If these few had been more 
accessible, I believe the modern Hirams would soon have demolished them. They all stand within a very 
small circuit, and the seven oldest are called ‘the Apostles.’ These seven alone are believed to be real 
antients, i.e., to date from a time before the kings of Israel, mighty, wise, and strong. They stand in the 
centre of the whole group, surrounded and guarded by their descendants and kinsfolk. . . . The huge boles, 
some of them measuring between forty and fifty feet in circumference, send forth to a great distance their 
fantastically-twisted branches laden with mighty cones. The lofty tops shoot high up towards heaven, and 
when, in their august presence, we imagine the whole mountain covered as it once was by such giants, we 
can well comprehend how the Cedars of Lebanon should be so often used in Scripture as emblems of 
strength, and majesty, and glory.” f 
Sir Joseph Hooker is our next authority. He visited the Cedars in company with Admiral Wash- 
* Five Years in Damascus. By the Rev. J. L. Porter. 1855, ii. p. 301. 
f A Bundle of Old Letters from a Wanderer. Good Words, October 1863, p. 701. 
ington 
