A T'housand'Mile Walk 



in wild Nature. She accomplishes her ends with- 

 out unquiet effort, and perhaps there is nothing 

 more mighty in the development of the flower- 

 stem of the agave than in the development of a 

 grass panicle. 



Havana has a fine botanical garden. I spent 

 pleasant hours in its magnificent flowery ar- 

 bors and around its shady fountains. There 

 is a palm avenue which is considered wonder- 

 fully stately and beautiful, fifty palms in two 

 straight lines, each rigidly perpendicular. The 

 smooth round shafts, slightly thicker in the 

 middle, appear to be productions of the lathe, 

 rather than vegetable stems. The fifty arched 

 crowns, inimitably balanced, blaze in the sun- 

 shine like heaps of stars that have fallen from 

 the skies. The stems were about sixty or 

 seventy feet in height, the crowns about fifteen 

 feet in diameter. 



Along a stream-bank were tall, waving bam- 

 boos, leafy as willows, and infinitely graceful in 

 wind gestures. There was one species of palm, 

 with immense bipinnate leaves and leaflets 

 I i66 ] 



