66 MONTSEItRAT. 



cern their shape without the ghasses. We walked up the 

 slope, and round about, in liopes of seeing the head of the 

 tree clear enough to guess at its total height: but in vain. 

 It was only when we had ridden some half mile up the hill 

 that we could discern its masses rising, a bright green 

 mound, above the darker foliage of the forest. It looked 

 of any height, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 

 feet ; less it could hardly be. " It made," says a note by one 

 of our party, "other huge trees look like shrubs." I am 

 not surprised that my friend Mr. St. Luce D'Abadie, who 

 measured the tree since my departure, found it to be one 

 hundred and ninety-two feet in height. 



I was assured that there were still larger trees in the 

 island. A certain Locust-tree and a Ceiba were mentioned. 

 The Moras, too, of the southern hills, were said to be far 

 taller. And I can well believe it; for if huge trees were as 

 shrubs beside that Sandbox, it would be a shrub by the side 

 of those Locusts figured by Spix and Martins, which fifteen 

 Indians with outstretched arms could just embrace. At 

 the bottom they were eighty-four feet round, and sixty 

 where the boles became cylindrical By counting the rings 

 of such parts as could be reached, they arrived at the con- 

 clusion that they were of the age of Homer, and 332 years 

 old in the days of Pythagoras. One estimate, indeed, reduced 

 their antiquity to 2,052 years old; while another (^counting. 



