TEE WONDERS OF VEGETATION". 37 



and those which supply limpid water or some strength- 

 ening beverage to the traveller. 



As bread is the staff of life, we will give the place 

 of honor to a fig-tree, which actually grows bread for 

 our antipodes in Oceanica, and thus renders unneces- 

 sary the toils of the sower, the reaper, the miller, and 

 the baker. 



The ancients loved to consider Nature as an indi- 

 vidual being, apart from the world, endowed with 

 reason and will, and constantly spoke of her in prose 

 and poetry as the " Universal Mother," and she well 

 deserves this beautiful name, by her conduct toward all 

 living things, and especially by the motherly affection 

 with which she provides for the numberless children 

 to whom she is incessantly opening the gates of exist- 

 ence. For what else are the rays of the sun calling 

 forth life upon the hill- slopes ; the rain falling softly 

 on meadow and prairie, and even the warm carpet of 

 snow which winter spreads over the frozen earth ; 

 the dew of morning and the vapory mists of evening 

 what are they but so many evidences of the tender- 

 ness of our mother Nature or rather the watchful- 

 ness of Divine Providence. But apart from these 

 cares bestowed impartially and without distinction 

 upon all existing things, the philosophical traveller 

 discovers, every now and then, special instances which 

 reveal to us more pointedly this marvellous goodness 

 of Providence, than the general working of the ab- 

 stract laws of nature. 



Among the examples which in a special degree 

 attest the watchful care of Providence, we have to 



