Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 114, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1916 — CEDARS of LEBANON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CEDARS of LEBANON

J—TI HE cedar forests which once clothed the seaward slopes of the Sy- * rian highlands were the i “glory of Lebanon.’’ But . r the remnant of those primeval forests which supplied timber for Babylonian temples, and were a profitable possession of Hiram, the Phoenician king, are only a sad reminder of a glory that has departed. The cedars have lost their claim to be the pride of Lebanon; barren grandeur and beauty of color are in these days the leading characteristics of these delightful mountains, for naked rock and sterile scree now reign where once dark forests thrived. Tet sufficient remains to show what Lebanon must have been in the old days; a mockery, no doubt, of their ancient splendor, but on the other hand an interesting relic and a valuable heritage. Living trees such as these, which their most sanguine admirers claim to have been contemporary with Solomon, must be reckoned as one of the historic treasures of the world. Not only does their fame rest upon traditional grounds; their beauty of form and power of growth have been extolled in psalm and verse by the bards of many lands, while their shadowy groves in still earlier days were the object of veneration. _ The primitive nature worshippers could not have chosen a finer ideal than this giant tree —perfect in every moment of its existence, an emblem of beauty, strength and vitality. It is easy to understand the admiration that the cedars evoked in their native land. To the Inhabitants of the otherwise barren Lebanon, to the wanderers in the deserts beyond, and even to the dwellers in the hill country of Palestine, these trees must have been tairacles of creation. These people only knew the delicate palm, the gnarled olive and stunted scrub oak; compared with these the gigantic boles and spreading arms of the lordly cedar were Indeed a mystery. In any land it is a tree that attracts attention; but in such a naked, treeless country as Syria and Palestine it is especially appreciated. Small wonder that it became “the tree of the Lord’ and a symbol of power. The eastern mind could find no better simile for expressing greatness, grandeur, excellence of character or loftiness of purpose. The might of the Assyrian empire was likened to the cedar in words too wonderful to be left unquoted: "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. “The waters made him great ... therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. “All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. “Thus was he fair In his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. “The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of God was like him In his beauty. "I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him." Again: the success of the good man

is guaranteed by the promise that “he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” And when the earth is shrouded in misfortune and tragedy, the metaphor used is: “Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down.” But the cedar has fallen on bad days; it has not escaped the curse that has settled on to those fair lands. The blight of desiccation, the ravages of unthinking and unworthy guardians, the canker of a stagnant government, have all done their share in the destruction of what was once the glory of an historic land. t In the days of yore the cedars were not carefully guarded relics, but actually formed the source of a lucrative timber business. As long ago as 2450 B. C. we know that the contractors of the Babylonian kings brought cedars from the Amanus Mountains, in northern Syria, to the Euphrates, whence they floated them down to their destination. Even as late as 1000 B. C. they must have been very-plentiful, for Solomon raised a levy of 30,000 aliens in the Land of Israel for the sole purpose of hewing timber in Lebanon. The supply, no doubt, gradually decreased as the population increased and the rainfall diminished. The uncontrolled destruction of the forests went on without interruption, so that in the absence of regeneration their doojn was sealed. What is left of the former glory of Lebanon is but a few isolated and comparatively insignificant groves. In point of fact, there are today five distinct groups of cedars, but the most famous of these does not possess above 400 trees, all told: and of these there is a very small proportion of real patriarchs. The actual geographical distribution of this cedar is not limited to the Lebanon. It also exists on the Amanus mountains, in northern Syria, and on the Taurus range, in Asia Minor; while Cedrus Libani is really only a local form of a large family which thrives in the Himalaya as the deodar, and in North Africa as the Algerian cedar. As a matter of fact, the Lebanon cedars do not bear comparison when brought into contrast with others of their kind; but the romance of their environment .and their historical

interest envelop the remains of King Hiram’s forests with a glamour of their own. Here, in their ancient home, the residue of those forests which once darkened the seaward slopes of lovely Lebanon still hold their own, aided by the. timely protection granted them by European sympathizers. At an altitude of about 6,300 feet above the sea, in sheltered amphitheaters surrounded by naked ridges and imposing crags, nestle the five remaining groups of cedars. None of them is more than fifteen miles from the coast in a direct line. The best known grove, and that which contains the oldest trees, is situated at the head of the Kadisha valley, a little to the south of the culminating peak of the Lebanon. It is a day’s ride inland from the port of Tripoli. In the neighborhood is a comparatively new grove which was started and preserved by a local Maronite bishop. These are a standing proof of what can be done in the way of reafforestation. The other three groups are in the southern Lebanon, and are more easily approached from Beirut, or, better still, by way of the station of Ain Sofa, on the Damascus railway. These three are all close together, but are distinguished by the names of the villages to which they belong, namely, AJn Zahalta, Maasir and Baruk. Of these, the Baruk grove is the best known and most frequently visited; it is also the largest group of all five. The oldest trees, though, are to be found in the northern, or Bsherreh, grove. This locality is known as the Jebel-el-Arz, or Cedar mountain, the grove of cedars being situated close under a 9,000 feet ridge of barren limestone. ’Here the solitary 400 are set in a lifeless, silent world of rock and scree where no other vegetation exists, shown off to perfection by a background of drifted snow and naked bowlder in winter and of utterly barren, bleached flanks in summer. Seen from a distance, they appear as a lit-, tie black dot in the imposing amphitheater of hills; but on closer acquaintance they prove to be spread out into several scattered clumps, covering the hummocks of an ancient moraine.