The glory of Lebanon was its cedar-trees which in ancient times stood like an army of giants around its base. Every one remembers that when King Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriag, he sent to Lebanon for cedars to form the roofs of the building and the columns around his own palace. The massive trunks were dragged down to the Mediterranean Sea, floated in rafts to Joppa, and thence carrried over the land to Jerusalem. The demands of trade and the wastefulness of successive generations have left only a few groves of these monarchs of the forest remaining, and these few are now carefully guarded.
There is still standing one of these venerable cedars, the oldest and most massive tree in the forest. Without doubt it stood there in the days of King Solomon and his friend King Hiram of Tyre. They may have walked arm in arm around its trunk and looked up to its outspreading arms. In the long process of the centuries, its arms have withered and fallen, but its mighty heart is still strong, and the sap still flows in its trunk. This old tree is held in almost idolatrous veneration by the villagers living near it. Festivals are held around it, its remaining branches are hung with votive offerings, and what seems to be worship is rendered to it.