DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5073#0287
276
THE CEDARS.
centre of an immense plateau, lying in the very bosom
of the giant mountain which closes round three sides of
it, a single black patch, so black and dark, I scarcely
believed that this could be the Cedars of Lebanon!
We rode on quickly, and forgot all fatigue and heat and
everything else directly we were under their delicious
shade, half an hour after our first view; it is difficult to
describe the first feeling there, — your head must ache
with the scorching heat, your eyes burn with the un-
shaded barrenness of the last few hours — you must feel
the soothing coolness of the shade stealing through
your heated veins, you must smell the powerful and re-
freshing fragrance of the Cedars, and see the venerable
forms around you, before you can understand that
beauty and delight which there sink into your very soul;
it is like passing from the noisy din and world-weariness
of some great city's market-place into the silent aisles
of a vast Cathedral, — only that here the solitude is
more complete, the columns and arches are of Nature's
raising, and the holy hymns are sung by sweet birds
twittering and trilling from tree to tree, while all
" the forest leaves seem stirred -srith prayer;"
in the fiery heat of the Bekaa the scorched sands of the
Desert, and the arid mountains of Judea, how often
one's mind harked back to the cool, green shades of the
Cedars, and one began to understand the glowing de-
scription of the Beloved whose eyes are like pools of
water, and whose " countenance is as Lebanon, excellent
as the cedars." (Cant. v. 15.)
It was difficult to choose the prettiest among so many
pretty spots for our tents, but we finally fixed them close
to the little chapel in the centre of the grove, from whence
THE CEDARS.
centre of an immense plateau, lying in the very bosom
of the giant mountain which closes round three sides of
it, a single black patch, so black and dark, I scarcely
believed that this could be the Cedars of Lebanon!
We rode on quickly, and forgot all fatigue and heat and
everything else directly we were under their delicious
shade, half an hour after our first view; it is difficult to
describe the first feeling there, — your head must ache
with the scorching heat, your eyes burn with the un-
shaded barrenness of the last few hours — you must feel
the soothing coolness of the shade stealing through
your heated veins, you must smell the powerful and re-
freshing fragrance of the Cedars, and see the venerable
forms around you, before you can understand that
beauty and delight which there sink into your very soul;
it is like passing from the noisy din and world-weariness
of some great city's market-place into the silent aisles
of a vast Cathedral, — only that here the solitude is
more complete, the columns and arches are of Nature's
raising, and the holy hymns are sung by sweet birds
twittering and trilling from tree to tree, while all
" the forest leaves seem stirred -srith prayer;"
in the fiery heat of the Bekaa the scorched sands of the
Desert, and the arid mountains of Judea, how often
one's mind harked back to the cool, green shades of the
Cedars, and one began to understand the glowing de-
scription of the Beloved whose eyes are like pools of
water, and whose " countenance is as Lebanon, excellent
as the cedars." (Cant. v. 15.)
It was difficult to choose the prettiest among so many
pretty spots for our tents, but we finally fixed them close
to the little chapel in the centre of the grove, from whence