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DESCRIPTION OF THE PALM.

sea-breeze rises, when a soft sweet murmur steals abroad upon the air, and each long quivering leaf contributes its note to the strain, which grows louder and deeper as the wind increases in force. At first, the tree only bends its leafy crest; but by-and-by its whole body waves to and fro, until, at evening, the entire mass of the forest rolls with a billowy motion like that of the sea, with a motion at once so graceful and majestic that words cannot describe it.*

Linné, the great botanist, has not inaptly called the tall and crested PALM TREES "the princes of the vegetable world," and wherever they bloom they enrich the landscape with their grace and majesty. The most perfect of the tribe have a tall cylindrical stem, which shoots upward from the earth, without knot or blemish, like an Ionic column; springing to an immense height, and yet so symmetrical that its slenderness conveys no idea of feebleThe summit bears a crown of emerald green plumes, like a diadem of gigantic ostrich feathers; these are frequently twenty feet long, droop slightly at the ends, and rustle musically in the breeze. In the arid desert it forms an object of peculiar beauty, as it soars, erect and graceful, near some welcome spring of living waters, a landmark to

ness.

the wayworn traveller; but to see it in all its glory you should visit the palm-groves of Tropical America, or Polynesia, and wander enchanted in their grateful shades. Under the natural screen which their thick green feathery branches supply, the orange and the lemon, the pomegranate, the olive, the almond, and the vine, flourish in wild luxuriance, and pour forth an abundance of luscious

*Hermann Melville.

fruit. And while the eye is never weary of gazing on the glorious blossoms which brighten and adorn the scene, the ear is also ravished with the sweet clear melody of numerous birds, attracted to the palm-grove by its cool shadows, its fruits, and crystal springs.

The valley of the Amazons rejoices in an infinite variety of these beautiful trees.* Among them a foremost place must be given to the Fan-leaved,† which abound in the islets and on the banks of the mighty river and its tributaries. Their stems are huge smooth cylinders, three feet in diameter, and about a hundred feet high. Their crowns consist of enormous clusters of fan-shaped leaves, whose stalks alone measure seven to ten feet in length.

Nothing in the vegetable world, we are told, can be more imposing than this grove of palms. No underwood obstructs the view of the long perspective of towering columns, which forces on the spectator's mind the remembrance of the long-drawn aisles of Gothic cathedrals. The crowns, densely packed together at an immense height overhead, shut out the rays of the sun; and the gloomy solitude beneath, where every sound has a strange reverberation, can be compared to nothing so well as a solemn temple. In such a scene it is meet that the soul, on Devotion's wing," should mount to God.

Humboldt has christened the Mauritia flexuosa the "Tree of Life." "It is the chief, almost the only nourishment," he says, "of the unconquered nation of the Guaranis, at the mouth of the Orinoco, who skilfully stretch their mats-woven from the nerves of the leaves-from one

* H. W. Bates, "The Naturalist on the Amazons."

+ Mauritia flexuosa.

Humboldt, "Personal Narrative of Travels in Equatorial America."

trunk to another, and during the rainy season, when the Delta is inundated, live like apes on the tops of the trees."

These habitations are partially roofed with mud; the women light their household fires on a flooring of tho same material; and the traveller, ascending the river at night, gazes astonished on the hundred spiral shafts of flame and smoke which seem kindled in the very air!

But not only with a habitation does the Mauritia supply these savages; it also feeds them. Before the flowers are developed, the trunk affords them a farinaceous pith, like sago; the sap provides wine and "the joys of Bacchus; the fresh fruits, covered with scales like fir-cones, yield them nourishment, whether they eat them after the full development of their saccharine principle, or when they simply contain an abundant pulp.

The fruit was first brought to England by Sir Walter Raleigh. The tree does not attain maturity in less than 120 or 150 years.

The Assai palm* deserves mention on account of its edible properties. The fruit, which is perfectly round, and about as large as a cherry, contains but a small quantity of pulp, lying between the hard kernel and the skin. With the addition of water, the pulp forms a thick, violet-coloured beverage, which stains the lips like blackberries, and is universally drunk by the Indians of the Tocantins. The tree itself rises, without knot or blemish, to a great height. The outer part of the stem is as hard and as tough as horn; split into narrow plants it is used for the walls and flooring of the Indian huts.

A noble palm grows in the neighbourhood of San