6 LIFE OF A TREE. 
tent with very little. So is it in the wide gar- 
den of the world: the constitution of plants 
varies, and their conditions of coming into 
existence vary also. 
Let us, then, cast one glance abroad. _We are 
in Ceylon. The blue and cloudless air is full of 
warm odours, and the burning sun drives us to the 
shelter of the coco-palm groves. Here comes a 
native with a rude kind of spade in his hand, and 
a bag containing salt together with a coco-nut in 
the other.* Digging about a foot down into the 
soil a hole sufficiently large to accommodate the 
nut, he sprinkles a little salt over it, then shovels 
in the earth, and setting a mark over the place 
leaves it. By-and-by the soil cracks, and the 
young plant rears its head aloft, and in time takes 
its place with the noblest of those around.—Now 
we are in Egypt. In the dim horizon see the 
pointed peak of the pyramids standing against the 
sky; while between them and Cairo rolls a sea 
of fertile land, level and smooth; and the great 
Nile in the distance is seen winding its lazy 
Jength along in a serpentine direction toward the 
sea. The inundation is at an end; the retiring 
* See the Frontispiece to this Chapter. 
