THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 87 



and frequently reaching a height of 215 feet, changes its 

 whole outer bark into wax, which the Indians scrape 

 off, purify and change into candles or use as soap. 

 It is in Havana that we admire to greatest advantage 

 the beautiful family of palms. Palm avenues are often 

 seen in the Island of Cuba planted in front of the 

 white mansions that overlook the sugar-cane fields. 

 Here are long avenues of palms, there of mangoes and 

 orange-trees, and at the other end lie the gardens and 

 vast plantations, where the negroes, men women and 

 children, renew each day their labors. 



In Cuba the air is not excessively hot, and yet per- 

 fectly transparent. Light clouds, says Mr. Dana, are 

 floating at mid-height in the serene sky, the sun is 

 brilliant > and the luxuriant flora of a perpetual summer 

 covers the whole country. Everywhere rise these 

 wondrous palms. Many of the other trees resemble 

 ours,but these form the distinctive features of tropical 

 climates. The royal palm, especially, is characteristic 

 of the tropics it cannot grow outside the narrow belt 

 which encircles our globe, lying close to the Equator. 

 It has no special beauty of its own, it gives no shade 

 and bears no fruit that is useful to man, and yet, with 

 all these disadvantages and drawbacks, it has the pow- 

 er to attract us irresistibly, and once seen it is never 

 again forgotten. 



Palm-trees are however not unknown in the United 

 States ; in Key West, for instance, cocoa-nut palms 

 are seen overshadowing every thing, and presenting, in 

 the young trees especially, such grace of form as veg- 

 etation shows nowhere else. Date palms also, bear- 



