REMAUKS ON THE CYPRESS. 153 



The Turks of the present day attend most religiously to the 

 planting of the cypress tree at the tomb of their departed friends 

 and relatives ; and they are always careful to select the upright 

 variety, as the spreading cypress would, in such situations, be the 

 cause of much sorrow to them, from their belief that when the 

 tree grows with a spiral point towards heaven, it indicates that 

 the soul of their friend is ascended into the regions of bliss. The 

 Armenians are not allowed to plant a cypress tree, at the graves 

 of their deceased friends, but they are permitted to plant any bran- 

 ching tree, as the apple, oak, or elm, &c. ; which, from it's crooked 

 branches, indicates, as the Mahommedans affirm, the impossibility 

 of the ascension of Christian souls. When will reason ascend her 

 universal throne! 



Lady M. W. Montague mentions a cypress tree in a garden at 

 Kujuk Checkmedji, that was converted to rather a singular use, 

 " The house and garden now belong," says her Lady-ship, '' to a 

 hogia, or schoolmaster, who teaches boys here. I asked him to 

 show me his own apartment, and was surprised to see him point to 

 a tall cypress tree in his garden, on the top of which was a place 

 for a bed for himself, and a little lower one for his wife and two 

 children, who slept there every night. I was so much diverted 

 with the fancy," says Lady Mary, " that I resolved to examine his 

 nest nearer ; but going up fifty steps, 1 found I had still fifty to go 

 up, and then I must climb from branch to branch with some ha- 

 zard of my neck. I thought it therefore the best way to come 

 down again." 



Cato wrote more on ttie cultivation of the cypress than on that 

 of any other tree ; and he calls it a Tarentine tree ; but Pliny says, 

 that was from its being first planted in that neighbourhood, and 

 (hat the isle of Candia is its natural country ; where, hesa) r s, when 

 the ground is ploughed up, the young plants are sure to appear, 

 and that in many parts of that island, the cypress trees spring up 

 without culture ; particularly on Mount Ida, on which they grow 

 to the very point, although it is continually covered with snow, 

 ilanway says, some of the mountains near Eeshd, in Persia, are 

 covered with cypress trees. Thus, like the cedar, its birth-place 

 is a cold bleak mountain ; and like that majestic tree, it lives 

 almost to eternity, and its timber seems nearly imperishable. Sir 

 W. Ousley tells us, in his travels, that " the beautiful and venera- 

 ble cypress of Fas&a has been the boast and ornament of that city 

 for above a thousand years." Pliny speaks of a cypress that was 



Vol. VII. No. 77. t 



