Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/210

SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON purity of the air at this altitude that even at night the sky was still a deep blue and the full moon touched the rocks with delicate tints of orange and rose, while, to complete the soft beauty of the scene, a double lunar rainbow swung its cold silvery arcs above the summit of the Cedar Mountain.

Then the wind freshened, the rising fog-waves overflowed from the valleys and the penetrating chill of our cloud-bound mountainside drove us to the shelter of our tents.

When we reached the cedar grove the next noon, we found that our first impressions had been wrong concerning everything except the supreme beauty of the mountain setting. Far from being situated upon a narrow shelf on a perilously steep slope, the trees are securely enthroned amid surroundings of massive grandeur. The watershed of Lebanon here curves around so that it encloses a tremendous natural amphitheater about twelve miles long and over six thousand feet in depth, with its inner, concave side facing the Mediterranean. High up on this crescent-shaped slope, the Kadisha or "Holy" River issues from a deep cave and falls to the bottom of the valley in a succession of beautiful cascades. Around the amphitheater run a succession of curving ledges, like titanic balconies, which near the bottom are small and fertile, but which become longer and broader and more barren toward the wind-swept summits. The highest of these, which lies nearly seven thousand feet [ 166 ]