Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/223

THE CEDARS OF THE LORD fragments which measure from one to five inches in length. Viewed from a distance, their appearance is exactly like that of the soft surface of a wheat-field. The only vegetable life consists of tiny bunches of a low, hardy plant with wooly gray-green leaves. We saw one little butterfly fluttering about lonesomely in the vast desolation.

Sheltered from sun and wind just under the highest ridges are snow-pockets—great, funnel-shaped depressions which during the hottest summer send down their moisture through the mountain mass to the cave-born rivers of western Syria. One who has not been there would never suspect how cold it can be in mid-summer on these higher slopes of Lebanon. The direct rays of the sun are, of course, very hot, and the wise traveler protects his head by a pith helmet. Yet the gloomy gorges are always chilly, the wind is biting, and the nights are positively cold. When tenting among the cedars, I slept regularly under heavy blankets, and once or twice reached down in the middle of the night and pulled over me the rug which lay beside my cot. The first time we climbed the mountain back of our camp, the wind was so cold and penetrating that we could remain only a few minutes on the summit, though we wore the heaviest of sweaters and had handkerchiefs tied over our faces.

At another ascent, however, we were more fortunate, for we found only a slight breeze blowing on [ 177 ]