cently overturned by the wind; while Stephan Schulz saw twenty. After the lapse of another century, the number of the oldest trees, as we have seen, is now reduced to about a dozen. All this marks a gradual process of decay; and it also marks the difficulty of exact enumeration. This is rightly ascribed by Fürer, and also by Dandini, to the fact, that many of the trees have two or more stems; and were thus reckoned differently by different travelers, sometimes as one tree, sometimes as two or more. Dandini, an Italian traveler of the seventeenth century, says that while he counted twenty-three trees, another person of the company made out twenty-one. Hence it was a matter of popular belief that they could not be counted correctly. All the travelers of the sixteenth century speak only of the old trees; they nowhere mention any young ones. Rauwolf, himself a botanist, seems to say expressly, that he sought for younger trees, without being able to find any. If this be so, it would appear that with the exception of the few remaining ancient trees, probably none of those which now make up the grove can be regarded as reaching back in age more than three hundred years. In the minds of the common people, an air of sanctity is thrown around the grove, the river, and the region. The ancient trees are sacred, as coming down from the times of Scripture and Solomon; and the river, which has its source near by, is also sacred, and is called el-Kadisha. In former centuries, the patriarch of the Maronites imposed various ecclesiastical penalties, and even excommunication, on any Christian who should cut or injure the sacred trees; and the story is recorded, that when some Muslims, who were pasturing in the vicinity, were so hardened and impious as to cut some of the trees, they were punished on the spot by the loss of their flocks. In former times, too, the Maronites were accustomed to celebrate in the sacred grove the festival of the Transfiguration, when the patriarch himself officiated, and said mass before a rude altar of stones. This ban and these ceremonies are to a certain extent continued at the present day; and the influence of them has unquestionably been great upon the popular mind. The rude altars of stone have in our day been superseded by a Maronite chapel, built within the last ten years. Several persons were residing here during summer, in connection with the chapel; but we did not learn what services were held in it. A part of the object of these persons seemed to be to wait on travelers, or to supply their wants, and thus gain a claim for bakhshish. A monk brought us wine for sale, and seemed disappointed when we declined the traffic. The cedars are not less remarkable for their position than for their age and size. The amphitheatre in which they are situated, is of itself a great temple of nature, the most vast and magnificent of all the recesses of Lebanon. The lofty dorsal ridge of the mountain, as it approaches from the south, trends slightly to the east for a time, and then, after resuming its former direction, throws off a spur of equal altitude towards the west, which sinks down gradually into the ridge terminating at Ehden. This ridge sweeps round so as to become nearly parallel with the main ridge; thus forming an immense recess or amphitheatre, approaching to the horse-shoe form, surrounded by the loftiest ridges of Lebanon, which rise still several thousand feet above it, and are partly covered with snow. In the midst of this amphitheatre stand the cedars, utterly alone, with not a tree besides, nor hardly a green thing in sight. The amphitheatre fronts towards the west; and, as seen from the cedars, the snows extend round from south to north. The extremities of the arc in front bear from the cedars southwest and northwest. High up in the recess the deep precipitous chasm of the Kadisha has its beginning, the wildest and grandest of all the gorges of Lebanon. The elevation of the cedars above the sea is given by Russegger and Schubert at 6,000 Paris feet; equivalent to 6,400 English feet. The peaks of Lebanon above rise nearly 3.000 feet higher. Besides the natural grace and beauty of the cedar of Lebanon, which still appear in the trees of middle age, though not in the more ancient patriarchs, there is associated with this grove a feeling of veneration, as the representative of those forests of Lebanon SO celebrated in the Hebrew Scriptures. To the sacred writers the cedar was the noblest of trees, the monarch of the vegetable kingdom. Solomon "spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that groweth out of the wall." To the prophets it was the favorite emblem for greatness, splendor and majesty; hence kings and nobles, the pillars of society, are everywhere cedars of Lebanon. Especially is this the case in the splendid description, by Ezekiel, of the Assyrian power and glory. Hence, too, in connection with its durability and fragance, it was regarded as the most precious of all wood, and was employed in costly buildings, for ornament and luxury. In Solomon's temple the beams of the roof, as also the boards and the ornamental work, were of the cedar of Lebanon; and it was likewise used in the later temple of Zerubbabel. David's palace was built with cedar; and so lavishly was this costly wood employed in one of Solomon's palaces, that it is called "the house of the forest of Lebanon." As a matter of luxury, also, the cedar was sometimes used for idols, and for the masts of ships. In like manner, the cedar was highly prized among heathen nations. It was employed in the construction of their temples, as at Tyre and Ephesus, and also in their palaces, as at Persepolis. In the two latter instances, however, Ephesus and Persepolis, it does not follow that the cedar came from Lebanon; though that of Syria was among the most celebrated. It is also very possible that the name, cedar, was sometimes loosely applied to trees of another species. The frequent mention in Scripture of the cedar of Lebanon, and the uses to which it was applied, make it apparent that in ancient times large tracts of the mountain were covered with forests of this tree. Diodorus Siculus also relates, that Lebanon was full of cedars, and firs, and cypresses of wonderful size and beauty. But the destruction of them for architectural uses, was far more rapid than their growth, so that when Justinian, in the sixth century, erected the Church of the Virgin (now St. Aksa) at Jerusalem, there was great difficulty in obtaining timber for the roof; though, after much search, a spot was found full of cedar trees of great height. The destruction still went on, and it would appear as late as the middle ages, private houses in Sidon, and probably also in Tyre and other Phenician cities, were ceiled and ornamented with the cedar of Lebanon. All these circumstances sufficiently account for the fact, that in our day the "goodly mountain" appears almost denuded of those graceful forests which, of old, were its chief glory. The impression, however, has far outstripped the reality, and the present grove has come to be regarded as the only representative of the ancient cedars. This impression has doubtless arisen from the circumstance, that this grove only is adjacent to any of the great roads by which travelers have crossed over Lebanon. Other cedar groves there may be in the northern and more inaccessible parts of the mountain which have remained unvisited, and therefore unknown. Such, indeed, is truly the case, according to the testimony of Ehrenberg and others. This eminent naturalist spent a considerable time on Lebanon, and found, as he informed me, the cedar growing abundantly on those parts of the mountain lying north of the road between Baalbek and Tripoly. The trees are of all sizes, old and young, but none so ancient and venerable as those usually visited. Seetzen, likewise, in 1805, speaks of having discovered two other groves of greater extent, without specifying their location. It appears, however, that one of these was near el-Hadith, southwest of Ehden, and the other in the district of ed-Dunnîyeh, south of Akkâr; but neither of them was personally visited by Seetzen. He afterwards, however, was at Etnûb, north of Ehden, where the region is wooded, and there he found cedars to the number of several thousands. The Sherbin of the Arabs, which O. Celsius and Freytag hold to be the cedar, is, according to Seetzen, the cypress, many of which, he says, grow on the mountain, east of Ehden. So, too, the Arabic and Syriac versions often put Sherbin for Sept. cypress. In respect to the grove near el-Hadith, which the natives and others speak of as Arz (cedar), I was informed by Dr. Paulding, of Damascus, that although the trees bear a general resemblance to the cedar, yet their leaves are altogether different, and mark them as a different kind of tree. This, however, does not conflict with the testimony of Ehrenberg, since elHadith is south of the chasm of the Kadisha. THE BATTLE OF THE BEES. I. "REVELERS we," Said the drunken Bee, As he crept from a cell in the flowery sea; While a fairy's bell, To the song of the bees' wild revelry. This wine hath set us winter-free! And we bound him, wreathing 'round him By a fairy's fingers, open, And the dahlia gave us wine, Rosy, golden, sparkling wine! Hark! how sweet the night-bells ring, Soft the elfin choirs sing In the pale moon shimmering. Break the cup again! Drain the bowl! From the soul Chase all weight of pain In the golden wine! Here to dream the dreamy day From our laden wings away, Lost in song divine; All the air is keeping time To a world of pleasant rhyme; The fairies run, Of the reigning one. O, Queen! Queen! Queen! In thy glorious sheen, Purple, violet, golden green, Lost in the gaze of thy countenance serene; Filled with the love we prize, And see where the honey-god hath been!" Thus sang the Bee, To his revellers three- O, in my soul I feel the power, From off her waxen throne. Pluck from the clown the kingly crown, All this time a fairy bell A cricket raised his head, and he But it struck a terror-blow To the soul of this mad Bee- While a sweet tongue whispered low- Woe to the bee that saps the bud, And gaily on its flushing rim II. In quiet nooks, where the lily holds Big with rebellion grew the air, For this wine-bibbing Bee had brought From ferns, and dikes, and fields well-fought, All bees of high and low degree, Together for his great design. Not bees that Hybla flocked, but they Young chrysalis, or they that run Lo! on a couch of purest white, A tree with blossoms white and sweet, And rouse her from her sleep- Forever passing in the hall. And leave them light, and life, and peace. A music breaks Harmonious from a thousand shells, |