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Ohio, and the loftiest cedar might take shelter under the lowest branches of CHAPTER California's vegetable glories. Still, they are respectable trees. The girth of the largest is more than forty-one feet; the height of the highest may be one size. hundred. These largest, however, part into two or three only a few feet from the ground. Their age is very uncertain, nor are they more ready to reveal it Age. than others who have an uneasy consciousness of length of days. Very different estimates have been made. Some of our missionary band, who have experience in such matters, and confidence in the results, have counted the growths (as we Western people call the annual concentric circles) for a few inches into the trunk of the oldest cedar, and from such data carry back its birth three thousand five hundred years. It may be so. They are carved full of names and dates, going back several generations, and the growth since the earliest date has been almost nothing. At this rate of increase they must have been growing ever since the flood. But young trees enlarge far faster, so that my confidence in estimates made from such specimens is but small.

The wood, bark, cones, and even leaves of the cedar are saturated, so to The timspeak, with resin. The heart has the red cedar colour, but the exterior is ber. whitish. It is certainly a very durable wood, but is not fine grained, nor

sufficiently compact to take a high polish; for ordinary architectural purposes, however, it is perhaps the best there is in the country. There is a striking

The

PART

II.

peculiarity in the shape of this tree, which I have not seen any notice of in books of travel. The branches are thrown out horizontally from the parent trunk. These, again, part into limbs which preserve the same horizontal branches. direction, and so on down to the minutest twigs, and even the arrangement of the clustered leaves has the same general tendency. Climb into one, and you are delighted with a succession of verdant floors spread around the trunk, and gradually narrowing as you ascend. The beautiful cones seem to stand upon, or rise out of this green flooring. I have gathered hundreds of these cones for friends in Europe and America; and you will see them in private cabinets more frequently than any other memento of the Holy Land.

Cones.

Ancient sculptures.

We will now turn to the left, and visit some curious sculptures in the face of the rocks on the south side of this ravine which comes down from Kanah. Here they are, some twenty figures of men, women, and children, rudely carved in alto-relievo when no great progress had been made in sculpture. They may be of any supposable age, and were probably cut by Phoenician artists, before Tyre had any such masters as that Hiram who was filled with all wisdom to work all cunning work,1 whom Solomon employed to beautify the temple of the most high God.

Kanah.

And that is Kanah spreading down the mountain to the east. It is a village of not more than two thousand inhabitants, and I see no evidence of antiquity about it.

That may be accounted for from the nature of the stone, a white marl, barely hard enough to be wrought, and which soon dissolves into soil when exposed to sun and rain. There is a ruin about a mile north of it, called 'Em el 'Awamid, which was built of hard rock, and there are ancient remains in abundance—foundations, columns, oil-presses, cisterns, and posts of houses scattered far and wide over the face of the mountain. There, too, are some

1 1 Kings rii. 14.

XIV.

well-preserved specimens of Cyclopean architecture, such as I have seen no- CHAPTER where else in this country. The original name is lost, and the present one, "Mother of columns," has been given by the Arabs on account of the columns which form so conspicuous a feature in its ruins. From the great number of old oil-presses at this place, and others north and south, it is evident that those now naked hills were once clothed with olive-trees. And that is probable enough, for this chalky marl is the best of all soils for the olive. When thus Beauty of cultivated and adorned, this part of Asher must have been most beautiful. So the disthought that crowning city Tyrus, and in her self-complacent vanity exclaims, "I am of perfect beauty."

We will now pass into the wady on the east of Kanah, where the servants are expecting us. With our wanderings and explorations, the ride from Tyre has taken three hours, but it can easily be done in two. Though it is early in the afternoon, we shall spend the night here, for there is no suitable place to encamp between this and Tibnîn.

trict,

Owing to the wild wadies covered with dense forests of oak and underwood, the country above us has ever been a favourite range for sheep and goats. Those low, flat buildings out on the sheltered side of the valley are sheepfolds. SheepThey are called mârâh, and, when the nights are cold, the flocks are shut up

folds

in them, but in crdinary weather they are merely kept within the yard. This, you observe, is defended by a wide stone wall, crowned all around with sharp