Mount Libanus

“ We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, the true apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and dangerous region called Tulúl el Safá, the Hillocks of the Safá district, a mass of volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps called lakes. Then we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a region which is innocent of tourists and traveller, and appears a blank of mountains upon the best maps. Of my fellow-traveller Charley Drake I can only say that every one knows his public worth. ”

“ Earthquakes are now frequent in the country. Volumes of smoke are observed to issue from the lake, and new crevices are daily found on its margin.
The country is mountainous. The range of Libanus, so named on account of their snowy summits, from the Hebrew "Lebanon," white, is imperfectly defined. The principal part of them lies towards the north of Galilea, but the name of Libanus is sometimes given to several parallel chains, which run through the whole extent of Palæstine. ”

“ Libanus grieved for him, and all the trees of the field trembled.
16 I shook the nations with the sound of his fall, when I brought him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of pleasure, the choice and best in Libanus, all that were moistened with waters, were comforted in the lowest parts of the earth.
17 For they also shall go down with him to hell to them that are slain by the sword: and the arm of every one shall sit down under his shadow in the midst of the nations.
18 To whom art thou like, O thou that art famous and lofty among the trees of pleasure? ”

“ If steel is employed, the veins shrink up. The sap is used by physicians. Libanus is the principal mountain, and has, strange to say, amidst these burning heats, a summit shaded with trees and never deserted by its snows. ”

“ Richard and I and Charley Drake made another pleasant journey exploring the Anti-Libanus. Everybody thinks, even professional geographers, if you speak of the Anti-Libanus, that you are going over trodden ground, filling up details upon the broad outlines traced by other people; but it is very far from being the case. Now the best maps only show a long conventional caterpillar, flanked by acidulated drops, and seamed with a cobweb of drainage. They never name a valley north-east of Zebedáni, nor a summit, except Jebel el Halímah, which is not its name. ”

“ On the north, opposed to the vast population of Asia Minor, it was protected by the double range of the Libanus and Antilibanus, a region of forests and defiles at all seasons almost impassable to chariots and cavalry, and during winter barred up with torrents and snows. The whole frontier to the east and south was a wall of mountain rising from a desert—a durable barrier over which no enemy, exhausted by the privations of an Asiatic march, could force their way against a brave army waiting fresh within its own confines. ”

“ When we came to the first height,{411} which is divided from the principal chain by a shallow valley, we had suddenly an indescribably beautiful and astonishing view over the whole of the mountain range of Libanon, which rose up before us, its whole length and down a considerable distance, covered with fresh shining snow; a true Alpine country in its most magnificent features, which towers majestically over this land blessed with eternal spring, but now so shamefully oppressed by its Turkish enemies. ”

“ The complexion of the Libn, which the people pronounce “Libin,” suggests grey granite profusely intersected with white quartz: hence, probably, the name, identical with Lebanon and Libanus—“the Milk Mountain.” The title covers a multitude of peaks: the Bedawin have, doubtless, their own terms for every head and every hollow. The citizens comprehensively divide the block into two, El-Áli (“the Upper”) being its southern, and El–Asfal (“the Lower”) its northern, section. It is said to abound in water; and a Nakhil (“date-grove”) is described as growing near the summit. ”

“ The western mountains rise gradually toward their northern, end, where they attain an elevation of over 11,000 feet. The eastern chain, however, reaches its culmination in its southernmost peak, Mount Hermon, which is 9,000 feet above the sea. On the coastal plain beside Lebanon lie the ancient cities of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos and the modern ports of Beirut and Tripoli. On a peninsula of fertility watered by the streams of Anti-Lebanon, Damascus stands between the mountains and the desert. ”

“ With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will out down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to the forest of its Carmel.
25 I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.
26 Hast thou not heard what I have done to him of old? from the days of old I have formed it: and now I have brought it to effect: and it hath come to pass that hills fighting together, and fenced cities should be destroyed. ”

“ In Phoenicia the sea is everything: of land there is but just enough to furnish a site for a score of towns, with their surrounding belt of gardens. Mount Lebanon, with its impenetrable forests, isolated it almost entirely from Coele-Syria, and acted as the eastward boundary of the long narrow quadrangle hemmed in between the mountains and the rocky shore of the sea. ”

“ Jebel Sunnin, which seems so mighty when viewed from the harbor of Beirut, now lies far below us. Mount Hermon rises still majestic seventy miles away, yet even the topmost peak of great Hermon is not so high as the spot on which we stand. To the east, across the long, broad valley of the Bikaʿ, rises the parallel range of Anti-Lebanon. Westward the magnificent amphitheater which we have come to think of as peculiarly our own opens out to where the Mediterranean, like a sheet of beaten gold, seems to slope far up to the azure sky. ”

“ Besides this connection with the mountain chains of Mesopotamia and Armenia on the northeast, from the south the great Syrian Lebanon, running very nearly parallel with the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, at the Issic angle, joins this common center of convergence, so insensibly losing its individual character in the Asian ridge, that by many writers, Mount Amanus itself is considered only a regular continuation of Lebanon. ”

“ Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526 feet, while only three others exceed 9000.* Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomes higher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. ”

“ There the table-land is rough and bare, the valleys are narrow and deep clefts, the soil is stony. From Libanus the eye looks out on the most various groups of wooded promontories and a smiling coast, but in Judæa the landscape exhibits none but severe and simple outlines. On the wide expanses only a few bushes of pale olives arise, or transparent groups of a few palm-trees. The grassy plains have made way for steppes or downs, and even the bed of the valleys is covered with fresh green only in the brief rainy season. The region round the Dead Sea is wholly desolate. ”

“ In the foreground the eye can roam over the boundless expanse of ocean, while at the foot of the mountain it fords a resting-place in the considerable town of Haifa, lying in a fertile plain, which extends to the base of the high mountains, bounded in the distance by the Anti-Libanus, and farther still by the Lebanon itself. ”

“ Canobine is a convent of the Maronites, and the seat of the patriarch, who is at present F. Stephanus Edenensis, a person of great learning and humanity. It is a very mean structure; but its situation is admirably adapted for retirement and devotion, for there is a very deep rupture in the side of Libanus, running at least seven hours' travel directly up into the mountain. It is on both sides exceeding steep and high, clothed with fragrant greens from top to bottom, and everywhere refreshed with fountains, falling down from the rocks in pleasant cascades, the ingenious work of nature. ”

“ Thus saith the Lord, Let the thirsty desert be glad, let the wilderness rejoice, and blossom as a rose, and let them bud forth and be exceedingly glad. And let the desert of Jordan rejoice, and the glory of Libanus shall be given unto it, and the honour of Carmel, and my people shall behold the glory of the Lord, and the exaltedness of God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and comfort ye the feeble knees; and say unto them that are faint-hearted in intention, Be ye strong, and fear not, behold our God will render judgment, he will come and save us. ”

“ The position of Mount Lebanon introduces the complicating factor of altitude, making the transition from Mediterranean to continental influences unusually abrupt. Banana plantations, winter sports resorts and desert oases are therefore encountered within a mere sixty miles of the sea. But everywhere the contrast between the landscape in spring, when the foliage is at its best, and in summer, when the increased heat has burned up vegetation, is very striking. ”

“ Well indeed did Liban call it the Plain of Fire, for a breath of fire is in the air for leagues and leagues around. On the lake where the Sidhe dwell the fishers row by and see nothing, or, mayhap, a flicker of phantasmal trees around the dun. These trees are rooted in a buried star beneath the earth; when its heart pulsates they shine like gold, aye, and are fruited with ruby lights. Indeed this Labraid is one of the Gods. I saw him come through the flaming rivers of the underworld. He was filled with the radiance. ”

“ There are regions more lofty than the glaciered crests of Lebanon; mountain scenery more sublime, perhaps even more beautiful: its peaks are not lost in the clouds like the mysterious Ararat; its forests are not as vast and strange as the towering Himalaya; it has not the volcanic splendour of the glowing Andes; in lake and in cataract it must yield to the European Alps; but for life, vigorous, varied, and picturesque, there is no highland territory in the globe that can for a moment compare with the great chain of Syria. ”

“ The cities of the dead lay close together in the background, on the slope of the nearest chain of hills; still further back lay a plain celebrated for its fertility and the luxuriance of its verdure: Lebanon, with its wooded peaks, was shut in on the north and south, but on the east the mountain sloped downwards almost to the sea-level, furnishing a pass through which ran the road which joined the great military highway not far from Qodshu. ”

“ But the literature of the Libyan Desert, that joins up to Egypt on the west, is curiously scanty, when the enormous area of this district is considered.
The Libyan desert may be said to extend from the southern edge of the narrow cultivated belt that exists almost everywhere along the North African coast, to the Tibesti highlands, and the northern limit of the vegetation of the Sudan. On the east the boundary of the desert is well defined by the Valley of the Nile; but on its western side it is extremely vague.
A broad belt of desert stretches all across North Africa from east to west. ”

“ Descending from our mountain camp, we rode north-west, over the well-watered plain, with its long rows of poplars, narrow strips of green turf beside the streams, and long vineyards, with vines trained into little bushes, as in Burgundy. Thence we ascended a rugged path over the grey rocky slopes of Anti-Lebanon, and our view extended over the broad brown Bukei’a, and as far as the long gleaming ridge of Lebanon, “the milk-white mountain,” the outline of which is broken by cones and rounded tops, whilst below a dusky fringe of brushwood creeps up the slopes. ”

“ The wording of the Old Testament might lead one to infer that Lebanon is a single mountain, and the modern Syrians also familiarly refer to it as ej-Jebel — "The Mountain." It is not, however, an isolated peak, but an entire range, which begins at the northern border of Palestine and stretches for a hundred miles along the easternmost shore of the Mediterranean. The narrow coastal plain cannot be distinguished at a distance. Straight out of the water the thousand summits rise in ever loftier ranks up to the level profile of the central ridge, two miles above the sea. ”

“ Weird, savage, like parts of Moab, the colouring is richer, forms more picturesque, contrasts of shape and hue are sharper, and the growth is more like thin forest. "That ravines of singular wildness and grandeur furrow the whole mountain side, looking in many places like huge rents," is true of Anti-Lebanon, but not of Lebanon. The views are superior; it is richer and more remarkable.
Some of our followers will not forget some of our day's work, for we ascend successively every height, taking angles, laying down altitudes, and building up kakús to serve for a theodolite survey. ”

“ As we zig-zag up the western slope of Lebanon there appear, now at our right and now at our left, a succession of beautiful panoramas which differ one from the other only in revealing a constantly widening horizon. Rich, populous valleys, lying deep between the shoulders of the mountains, slope quickly downward to the coast where, farther and farther below [61] us, the silvery-green olive orchards and golden sands of Beirut reach out into the ever-broadening azure expanse of the Mediterranean. ”