shrill and constant neighing adding to the interest, while it detracted not from the solemnity of the scene. Farther on,

the plain of Cœlo Syria stretched far away to the north, bounded only by the horizon.

On our left, the cloud-capped peaks of Lebanon, and on our right, the now full round orb of day, riding high above the Hermon.

Nor was the illusion broken until our Arab servants dismounted, and, turning their faces also to the holy Kebla, began their morning salutations to their Prophet.

The actors in this scene of apparent enchantment were the officers and soldiers of a large reserve of Ibraham Pacha's army of Syria, the élite of his splendid cavalry, amounting to several thousands.

When the morning prayer had ended, the Moslem dra. goons dispersed in every direction; and when we reached the camp, we were surrounded by hundreds of full-blooded Arabian led horses, being exercised by their grooms.

These beautiful creatures belong to the superior officers, who, according to their rank or wealth, have a greater or less number of them, merely for show and parade, and ta be led before them on state occasions. It was a singular fact, that the majority of them were gray.

Although these creatures are so extremely docile, yet they appeared to have a violent antipathy to the vulgar horde of working animals. We came near being utterly destroyed by inadvertently and incautiously riding in among them, for in an instant their heels were flying about our heads; and it was only by the greatest exertions of the grooms, and the utmost celerity on our part, that we were enabled to get without the reach of their murderous hoofs; not, however, without our own horses receiving some injury, On approaching the ruins, the first object which arrested our attention was a portion of the noble colonnade once at. tached to an immense temple, now quite destroyed. The

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most conspicuous monument was the great Temple of the Sun, which is of Grecian or Roman origin, founded upon a mighty substructure of much earlier date, and ascribed to Solomon. You may form a tolerable estimate of the gi gantic nature of these foundations, when I give you the di. mensions of the huge blocks of stone on which part of the outer wall of the temple rests.

We measured three of them, and found them together one hundred and eighty feet in length! Making each one sixty feet long, by about fifteen feet high, and as many deep. There is one stone still lying in the quarry near by, much larger than the above. I thought the great unfinished obelisk lying in the quarry at Syene, in Egypt, was the largest wrought stone in the world, but these enormous masses far exceed it in cubic volume.

Although the great temple at Balbec cannot vie in mag. nitude with most of the larger temples of Egypt, yet its chaste and beautiful Grecian style of architecture makes it a much more pleasing object to look upon. It is composed of a light-coloured stone; but as to the immense quantity of marbles that the poet Lamartine saw there, they must have very suddenly and unaccountably disappeared, for my husband carried off in his pocket the only piece of marble that we could find among all the ruins.

I shall not attempt a description of the temples of Balbec, for you must be perfectly familiar with them from the many prints extant, which present a very accurate view of them. Besides which, all modern travellers have filled pages with descriptions of these magnificent ruins, though few can do justice to them. A friend of ours, who has lately visited Palmyra, and who is very competent to decide in such mat. ters, declared to us that there was nothing there at all to compare with the Temple of the Sun at Balbec. The interest of the former ruins consists in the great extent of small columns, and the widely extended ruins in the midst of a

lonely desert, apart from the very interesting history of the City of Palms.

We hovered round these beautiful ruins during most of the day, and then took our departure across the plain towards Mount Lebanon, and encamped for the night at its base.

The next morning found us struggling up the steep acclivity of the mountain, and in a very few hours we were at the summit. The lower spurs were very rugged and precipitous; but it was in climbing the main mountain that we encountered the greatest obstacles. The path was not only very steep and rough, but was often obstructed with snow, which in many places was very deep, and we waded through it up to our saddle-girths. It occupied about three hours to reach the summit of the principal mountain; but, the moment it was achieved, we were amply compensated for the toil and danger of the ascent, by the sight of the object we were in pursuit of.

The tall and wide-spreading Cedars of Lebanon appeared in the north at no great distance from us, while the western aspect exhibited a magnificent display of mountain scenery.

We pressed onward, and before noon were regaling ourselves with a lunch under the deep shade of these venerable relics of by-gone ages. The area occupied by these ancient trees is about ten acres, though there are but a few trees remaining of the good old stock. There are, however, a considerable number of lineal descendants standing as sentinels round the aged trunks of their ancestors. There is every mark of very great antiquity about these few old trees, though they still seem to flourish, notwithstanding the numerous amputations which have been inflicted on them by visiters from time immemorial, for relics to carry away, and also the incisions made by travellers, who have fulfilled what Chateaubriand calls one of their pious duties, that of leaving their names recorded on the trunks. Although neither of

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our party performed this religious act, yet we have borne away, as a memorial of our pilgrimage to this sacred grove, a piece of the one which appears to be the oldest of the tribe. We also gathered many cones containing seed, with the intent of introducing the tree into the New World. These trees are of a species that I have never before seen in any part of the world. They appear as though they belong to a genus between the pine and the cedar, and the cone exhibits the same mixed appearance. Besides, the sap, oozing out of a wound in the bark, is tinctured with a strong resinous principle, which does not belong to the ce dar tribes. There are eight or ten of the veritable old stock remaining, the largest of which are from twenty-four to thirty feet in circumference! The space covered by the whole grove of trees, large and small, is about a mile and a half.

There are many allusions in the Scriptures to the cedars of Lebanon, but that which is most applicable to the present instance is in the thirty-first chapter of Ezekiel, where they are spoken of as "the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon." The district of country in which they stand is still called Eden. These trees are remarkable also for their large growth at so great an altitude above the level of the sea, and so near to where the snow lies the greater part of the year. That they are of an immense age, no one who has ever seen them pretends to doubt; and some very learn. ed botanists even assert their belief that it is quite possible, nay, even probable, that these very trees, which are ten feet in diameter of solid wood (not hollow trees), existed in the time of Solomon, and are therefore religiously preserved as sacred relics of the once great "forest of Lebanon."* The Christians, from the earliest times, have maintained a strict guard over them; and a convent not far off has the charge of them.

* See note at the end of this volume.

present

We found millions of young trees just sprouting from the seed, but they never attain to any height, as they are immediately cropped off by the goats. We, however, carefully took up some hundreds, with the earth about their roots, and transplanted them in boxes, which we have brought so far safely to this place, with the intention of taking them to Smyrna, and there shipping them for home.

After strolling a short time around the grove, and while the gentlemen were engaged in their botanical acquisitions, I passed two or three pleasant hours in communing with you, as my last letter will prove.

We afterward took leave of this interesting spot, and wound our way down the western declivity of Lebanon, by a very rough and precipitous path, to the village of Eden, which is most beautifully situated on a cliff that overhangs an immense gorge in the mountains, and surrounded by sce nery of the most grand and picturesque description, equal to anything I had seen in Switzerland. Several torrents were rushing down the mountain sides, tumbling in beautiful cascades as they hurried along to mingle their waters with the river which runs through the bottom of the valley.

While on the top of Lebanon we found the temperature many degrees colder than in the plains below, and the contrast was still more striking in the progress of vegetation. The wheat, which in the plains was ripe for harvest, had not on the mountain shot into ear, and we saw many of the earliest spring plants. Indeed, I was much surprised and delighted to find so great a number and such beautiful varieties of flowers growing upon the most rugged peaks of the mountain. Many of them were altogether new to me, and would be a delightful acquisition to our gardens. I made some collections for my herbarium, and I hope one day or other to be able to show you specimens of the same flowers and plants, among which the man of all wisdom, King Solomon, was so fond of botanizing.