: 
5 
: 
; 
3 
THE CEREUS GIGANTEUS. 71 
acquainted. Here these huge grooved columns thrust their 
thick trunks from between the crags, and rise up on all sides 
far above our heads to heights varying from the baby-plant to 
the forty-feet. They seem to require no earth; and in places 
the walls are covered with them to the very summit. The 
Secondary columns shoot out from the central stem, and then 
turn upwards with studied regularity, forming a circle of 
Tha fi +cvanteus 
Ss S*s 
four or six arms around the parent trunk. Besides the 
“Monumental Cactus,” as it is sometimes called, large bushes 
of prickly pear, tufts of Spanish bayonet and magay, with 
other species of prickly plants, also find a genial abode up 
amongst the crags, producing a contrast most singular and 
striking between the grotesque spinous vegetation upon the 
walls and the graceful foliage in the narrow passage beneath. 
