THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 515 



years previously. Starting from this point, and comparing 

 the diameters of the stems of many of these bulky trees, 

 the French savant succeeded in proving that the most 

 vigorous of these primitive inhabitants of the African for- 

 ests might be at least 5000 years old. 



A bareheaded cypress, a venerable patriarch of the 

 vegetable kingdom, has possibly traversed a still longer 

 vista of ages ! It is seen at the present day on the road 

 from Vera Cruz to Mexico, and is celebrated for having 

 sheltered the whole army of Fernando Cortez beneath its 

 mighty shade. Its birth, according to some botanists, 

 seems to date from an epoch so remote as to be almost be- 

 yond our ken. As its trunk, which is 117 feet in circum- 

 ference, surpasses that of the baobabs, and as its growth is 

 slower than theirs, De Candolle supposes this tree may be 

 not less than 6000 years old ; which carries back its origin 

 to the times anterior to the period usually assigned to the 

 Mosaic creation. 1 



Meanwhile, we ought not to be astonished at seeing some 

 botanists look upon trees as so many beings, the life of 



1 History has preserved for us the number of soldiers that composed the little 

 army of Cortez, and this knowledge enables us to estimate how far the shade of 

 the cypress in question must have extended. The army consisted of six hun- 

 dred Spanish foot soldiers, forty horse, and nine small pieces of artillery. Hist. 

 Gen. des Voy., t. xii., p. 389. According to M. Schacht the calculations of 

 Adanson are liable to the charge of inexactness on account of the rapidity with 

 which this tree grows. In forty years a baobab at Santa Cruz gained a circum- 

 ference of about ten feet four inches. 



Strabo mentions trees still more extraordinary, but without appearing to be- 

 lieve in them. He says that beyond the Hyarotis there was one the shade of 

 which was so ample that it extended five plethra (505 feet), and could shelter 

 ten thousand persons. Strabo, Geography, book xv. 



