172 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



horsemen travelling from the city to the country, love 

 to pursue a path running parallel to and near the 

 main road, which passes under this marvellous vege- 

 table gate, formed by the divisions of the trunk. 

 The two stems, though divided, are sufficiently strong 

 to bear the enormous weight of the plane-tree, the 

 lofty branches of which afford a view over one of the 

 most lovely bays of the Asiatic coast. 



From this point we can see the Oriental ceme- 

 teries of Smyrna, the most famous next to those of 

 Pera and Scutari, dark with the sombre shades of 

 countless cypresses. The view commands the plain, 

 also, from the eastern limits of the great city to the 

 fertile slopes in the west, that fall into the sea. 



THE PLANE-TREE OF COS. 



Cos, the celebrated island of the Sporades, that 

 gave birth to Hippocrates, the greatest of the physi- 

 cians, and to Apelles, the greatest of the painters of 

 Greece, contains in the centre of the public square, a 

 magnificent plane-tree, famous throughout the world. 

 Its far-spreading branches cover the whole square. 

 Left to themselves, these branches would break of 

 their own weight, if the inhabitants had not under- 

 taken to support them on columns of marble. They 1 

 devote to this monarch of trees a kind of worship 

 not less sincere, nor less profound, than they pay to 

 the surrounding edifices, -the last witnesses of their 

 former grandeur. 



