188 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



their own amusement will climb trees of any height in pur- 

 suit of a parrot or a monkey, cannot be induced either by 

 money or presents to deviate three steps from the regular 

 path, supposing one to exist, being rendered "rich and 

 independent by their apathy, their poverty, and their bar- 

 barism." 



Humboldt relates how that once in the month of January, 

 when the stems of the Palma Eeal were covered with snow- 

 white blossoms in all the most frequented thoroughfares of 

 the Havannah and in the immediate vicinity of the city, 

 though he and his fellow-traveller offered, for several days 

 running, a couple of piastres to every Negro-boy they met 

 in the streets of Eegla and Guanavacoa, for a single spike 

 of the blossoms containing both stamens and pistil, it was 

 in vain ; " for, in the tropics, no free man will ever under- 

 take any labour attended by fatigue, unless he is compelled 

 to do so by imperative necessity \" and even the botanists 

 of the Royal Spanish Commission of Natural History " con- 

 fessed to him that for several years they had been unable to 

 examine these blossoms, owing to the absolute impossibility 

 of procuring them/' 



Though the region of Palms extends no further, as a 

 general rule, than from the plain to an elevation of 1900 



