136 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



and passes thus, head downward, with astounding alacrity, 

 from tree to tree ; whilst even the black tiger of South 

 America, finding the undergrowth too dense and impene- 

 trable, lives on trees, and in his bloody race, leaps from 

 branch to branch, until he has hunted down his exhausted 

 prey. 



Nor has man himself neglected to avail himself of trees, 

 as a dwelling or a home. Already Lucinius Mutianus, 

 an ex-Consul of Lycia, took pleasure in feasting twenty- 

 one guests in a hollow plane-tree ; and modern travellers 

 tell us of a gigantic Boabab in Senegambia, the interior 

 of which is used as a public hall for national meetings, 

 whilst its portals are ornamented with rude, quaint sculp- 

 tures, cut out of the still living wood. The sacred fig- 

 tree of India, which, as Milton says, is seen 



"Branching so broad along, that in the ground 

 The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 About the mother tree, a pillar's shade 

 High overarch'd, with echoing walks between," 



is worshipped as sacred, and the lazy, helpless priest, the 

 Bonze, builds himself a hut, not unlike a bird's cage, in 

 its branches, where he spends his life, dreaming in con- 

 templative indolence, under its cool, pleasant shade. Nay, 

 whole nations live in the branches of trees. There is a 

 race of natives in South America, west of the mouth of 

 the Orinoco, the Guaranis, who have never yet been com- 

 pletely subdued, thanks mainly to their curious habita- 

 tions. The great Humboldt tells us, that they twine most 

 skilfully the leaf-stalks of the Mauritius palm into cords, 

 and weave them with great care into mats. These they 



