In Ancient Times The Whole Range Of The Lebanon
Had Been Covered With Cedars, And As The Fertile Plains Beneath
Became more and more infested by government officers and tyrants of
high and low degree, the people by degrees abandoned
Them and
flocked to the rugged mountains, which were less accessible to
their indolent oppressors. The cedar forests gradually shrank
under the axe of the encroaching multitudes, and seemed at last to
be on the point of disappearing entirely, when an aged chief who
ruled in this district, and who had witnessed the great change
effected even in his own lifetime, chose to say that some sign or
memorial should be left of the vast woods with which the mountains
had formerly been clad, and commanded accordingly that this group
of trees (which was probably situated at the highest point to which
the forest had reached) should remain untouched. The chief, it
seems, was not moved by the notion I have mentioned as prevailing
in the Greek Church, but rather by some sentiment of veneration for
a great natural feature - sentiment akin, perhaps, to that old and
earthborn religion, which made men bow down to creation before they
had yet learnt how to know and worship the Creator.
The chief of the valley in which I passed the night was a man of
large possessions, and he entertained me very sumptuously. He was
highly intelligent, and had had the sagacity to foresee that Europe
would intervene authoritatively in the affairs of Syria.
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