Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/227

THE CEDARS OF THE LORD that the whole mountain would take on a soft silver glow, against which colors could be distinguished almost as well as by day. Now and then there would be a cold, foggy morning; but the trees kept out the mists and, although a solid wall of white surrounded us, within the grove it was clear and dry and homelike.

The shelter, the support, the background, the inspiration of all the camp life, were the great, solemn trees. After a while you come to love them, or rather to reverence them. They are so large, so old; they have such marked individuality. The cedars are regal rather than beautiful. Rough and knotted and few in number, at first sight they are a little disappointing; but, like the mountains around them, they become more impressive day by day. These thousand-year-old trees seem to stand aloof from the hurry and bustle of the twentieth century, as though they were absorbed in thoughts of earlier, and perhaps wiser, days. After you have lived for a time beneath their shade, their solemn magnificence begins to quiet your spirit; and when the glorious moonlight floods the mountain and casts black shadows down the deep gorges that drop away to the distant sea, it is easy to behold in the witching light the picture that these ancient trees saw in the long ago. Dark groves of cedars nestle once more In the valleys and sweep over the mountain-tops in great waves of green; a stronger peasantry speaks a different tongue [ 181 ]