THE VAST. 



the southern extremity of America, where it 

 grows up from a depth of forty-five fathoms to 

 the surface, at a very oblique angle, says, that its 

 beds, even when of no great breadth, make excel- 

 lent natural floating breakwaters. It is quite 

 curious to mark how soon the great waves from 

 the ocean, in passing through the straggling stems 

 into an exposed harbour, sink in elevation, and 

 become smooth. 



Such an enormous length is not without parallel 

 in terrestrial plants. Familiar to every one,— 

 from the schoolboy, over whom it hangs in tev- 

 rorein, upward,— as is the common cane, with its 

 slenderness, its flexibility, and its flinty, polished 

 surface, — how few are aware that it is only a 

 small part of the stem of a palm-tree, which, in 

 its native forest, reached a length of five hundred 

 feet I These ratans form a tribe of plants growing 

 in the dense jungles of continental and insular 

 India, which, though they resemble grasses or 

 reeds in their appearance, are true trees of the 

 palm kind. They are exceedingly slender, never 

 increasing in thickness, though immensely in 

 length; in the forest they trail along the ground, 

 sending forth leaves at intervals, whose sheathing 

 bases we may easily recognize at what we call 

 joints, climb to the summits of trees, descend to 

 the earth, climb and descend again, till some spe- 

 cies attain the astonishing length of twelve hun- 

 dred feet.* 



We are accustomed to consider the various spe- 

 cies of Cactus as petted plants for our green-house 

 shelves and cottage- windows ; yet, in our larger 

 conservatories, there are specimens which astonish 

 us by their size. A few years ago there were at 

 the Royal Gardens at Kew, two examples of 

 * kk Rumph.," v. p. 100. 

 127 



