A sound of trumpets and wild harmonies arose, and I discovered, at an almost viewless depth below, a concourse of people moving through the hollows of the mountains. The tendency of man to man is irresistible; and that unexpected sight, where but the wild beast and the eagle were to have been my companions, gave me the first sensation of pleasure that I had long experienced. Bounding from rock to rock with a hazardous rapidity which arrested the crowd in astonishment and alarm, I joined them, just in time to see the shafts and slings laid down, which they had prepared for my coming, in the uncertainty whether I were a wolf or the leader of a troop of mountain robbers!
They formed one of the many caravans which annually gathered from the shores of the Mediterranean to worship at Lebanon. Their homage to sacred groves had been transmitted from the earliest antiquity, and was universal in the realms of paganism. To the Jew, worship on the hill and under the tree was prohibited; but the forest that Solomon had chosen, the trees of which the first Temple was built, the foliage which shaded the first planters of the earth, must to the descendant of Abraham be full of reverent interest. The ground was Scriptural; the fiery string of the prophet Ezekiel had been struck in its praise; the noblest raptures of our poets celebrated the glory of Lebanon; the names of the surrounding landscape recalled lofty and lovely memories; the vale of EDEN led to the mountain of the Cedars!
To my fellow-travelers, traditions tinged by the fervid coloring of the Oriental fancy heightened the native power of the spot. On the summits of the trees were said to descend at appointed times those ministering spirits whose purpose is to rectify the ways of man. There stooped on the wing the bearers of the sword against the evil monarchs; there brooded the angel of the tempest; there the invisible ruler of the pestilence blew with his breath and nations sickened; there, in night and in the interval of storms, was heard the trumpet that, before kings dreamed of quarrel, announced the collision of guilty empires for their common ruin. The violation of the grove was supposed to be visited with the most inexorable calamity; the hand that cut down a tree for any ordinary use withered from the body; all misfortunes fell upon the man; his wealth disappeared, his children died in their prime; if life was suffered to linger in himself, it was only to perpetuate the warning of his punishment. Yet, there were gentler distinctions mingled with those stern attributes. Above the hill was the pagan entrance to the skies. Once in the year, the celestial gate rolled back on its golden hinges to sounds surpassing mortal music; the heavens dropped balm; the prayer offered on that night reached at once the supreme throne; the tear was treasured in the volume of light, and the worshiper who died before the envious coming of the morn ascended to a felicity, earned by others only through the tardy trial of the grave! Even the river, which ran round the mountain’s foot, bore its share of virtue; its water, unpolluted by the decays of autumn or the turbidness of winter, showed the preservative power of a superior spell; it was entitled the Holy Stream, and sealed vessels of its water were sent even to India and Italy as presents of health and sanctity to kings, gifts worthy of kings.