THE LONGEVITY OF TREES. 113 



serve very well for bee-hives ! A small space of the tree it- 

 self is hollow, nearly as high as the buttresses already men- 

 tioned. From this place the tree, as it were, takes another 

 beginning, forming a great, straight column, eighty or ninety 

 feet high ; when it divides every way around into an exten- 

 sive, flat, horizontal top, like an umbrella, where eagles have 

 their secure nests, and cranes and storks their temporary rest- 

 ing-places. And what adds to the magnificence of their ap- 

 pearance is the streamers of long moss that hang from the 

 lofty limbs, and float in the winds." (Bartram's "Travels 

 through Carolina, Georgia, etc.," p. 91.) 



In favorable situations, the tree sometimes attains the 

 height of one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and forty 

 feet, and a circumference of from twenty to forty feet, when 

 measured quite above the singular dilated base. This is 

 scarcely exceeded by the largest of the celebrated Cypresses 

 in the gardens of Chapultepec, at Mexico, called the " Cypress 

 of Montezuma," and which was already a remarkable tree in 

 the palmy days of that unfortunate monarch, three and a 

 half centuries ago. The girth of its trunk is forty-one feet, 

 according to Mr. Ward, 1 or about forty-five, according to Mr. 

 Exter ; but its height is so great in proportion, that the 

 whole mass appears light and graceful. 



But this tree is greatly surpassed by the famous " Ahue- 

 huete " (the Mexican name for the species) of the village of 

 Atlisco, in the intendancy of Puebla, which was first described 

 by Lorenzana from personal observation. The worthy Arch- 

 bishop says that "the cavity of the trunk " — for the tree is 

 hollow — " might contain twelve or thirteen men on horse- 

 back ; and that, in the presence of the most illustrious Arch- 

 bishop of Guatemala and the Bishop of Puebla, more than a 

 hundred boys entered it." 2 The girth of the trunk, according 

 to Humboldt, is a little over twenty-three metres, or seventy- 

 six English feet, and the diameter of the cavity about sixteen 

 feet. 3 



1 " Travels in Mexico," ii. p. 230. 



2 Note to the Third Despatch of Cortes. This note is not found in 

 Mr. Folsom's translation. 



3 " Essai Polit. Nouv. Esp.," ed. 2, ii. p. 54. 



