THE DRAGON THEE 



105 



by the digging of a well under part of its roots, which, though 

 but seventy feet high, was forty-six feet in girth. 



Another tree very characteristic of Africa, and frequently 

 seen along with the baobab, is the large arborescent Euphorbia 

 (^E. arhorescens), surmounted at the top with stiff leaves, 

 branching out like the arms of a huge candelabra. It adds 

 greatly to the strange wildness of the landscape, and seems 

 quite in character with the aspect of the unwieldy rhinoceros 

 and the long-necked giraffe. 



Dracaenas, or dragon-trees, are found growing on the west 

 coast of Africa and in the Cape Colony, in Bourbon and in 

 China; but it is only in the 

 Canary Islands, in Madeira, 

 and Porto Santo, that they at- 

 tain such gigantic dimensions 

 as to entitle them to rank 

 among the vegetable wondeis 

 of the world. 



Near Orotava, in Teneriffe, 

 still flourishes the venerable 

 dragon-tree, which was already 

 reverenced for its age by the 

 extirpated nation of the Guan- 

 ches, the aboriginal inhabitants 

 of the island, and which the 

 , adventurous Bethencourts, the 

 conquerors of the Canaries, 



found hardly less colossal and cavernous in 1402 than Hum- 

 boldt, who visited it in 1799. Above the roots, the illustrious 

 traveller measured a circumference of forty-five feet ; and accord- 

 ing to Sir George Staunton, the trunk has still a diameter of 

 four yards, at an elevation of ten feet above the ground. The 

 whole height of the tree is not much above sixty-five feet. The 

 trunk divides in numerous upright branches, terminating in tufts 

 of evergreen leaves, resembling those of the pine-apple. 



Next to the baobab and the di'acsena, the Sycamore {Ficus 

 Sycomiorus) holds a conspicuous rank among the giant trees 

 of Africa. It attains a height of only forty or fifty feet, but 

 in the course of many centuries its trunk swells to a colossal 

 size, and its vast crown covers a large space of ground with an 



Dragou Tree. 



