CONVEKSATION IV. 



PALM AMARYLLIS IBIS PLANTAIN GINGER ARROWROOT 

 ORCHIS RUSH AUTUMN CROCUS, AND LILY TRIBES. 



* The palm-tree in the wilderness 



Majestic lifts its head, 

 And blooms in solitary grace 

 Where all around is dead." 



MARY had read some verses, beginning in this 

 manner, and she tried to find them, and also to 

 learn the different uses of PALMS, before her father 

 came into the study. She found out that in 

 Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, people make their 

 principal food of the fruit ; that they make couches, 

 baskets, bags, mats, and brushes from the leaves, 

 and also roof their houses with them ; and that 

 they make garden-fences, and cages for poultry 

 from the branches; besides using the fibres for 

 thread, ropes, and rigging. Her father told her 

 that the uses of the palms are almost endless ; for, 

 according to Humboldt, wine, oil, wax, flour, 

 sugar, sago, and salt are obtained from the tribe, 

 besides many inferior articles. 



4. E 



