GEOWTH AND DECLINE OF CULTURE. 171 



smooth gum-trees did not cut notches after the AustraKan 

 plan, except where the bark was rough and loose near the 

 ground. Having got over this part by the notches, they threw 

 round the tree a rope twice as long as was necessary to encom- 

 pass it, put their hatchets on their bare, cropped heads, and 

 placing their feet against the tree and grasping the rope with 

 their hands, they hitched it up by jerks, and pulled themselves 

 up the enormous trunks almost as fast as a man would mount 

 a ladder.^ 



The ancienti Mexcan art of turning the waters of their lakes 

 to account by constructing floating gardens upon them, has 

 been abandoned, apparently on account of the sinking of the 

 waters, which are now shallow enough to allow the mud gar- 

 dens to rest upon the bottom. At the time of Humboldt^'s visit 

 to Mexico, however, there were still some to be seen, though 

 their number was fast decreasing. The floating gardens, or chi- 

 nampas, which the Spaniards found in great numbers, and seve- 

 ral of which still existed in his time on the lake of Chalco, were 

 rafts formed of reeds, roots, and branches of underwood. The 

 Indians laid on the tangled mass quantities of the black mould, 

 which is naturally impregnated with salt, but by washing with 

 lake water is made more fertile. " The chinampas,'' he con- 

 tinues, " sometimes even carry the hut of the Indian who serves 

 as guard for a group of floating gardens. They are towed, or 

 propelled with long poles, to move them at will from shore to 

 shore.^'^ Though floating gardens are no longer to be met with 

 in Mexico, they are still in full use in the shallow waters of 

 Cashmere. They are made of mould heaped on masses of the 

 stalks of aquatic plants, and will mostly bear a man's weight, 

 though the fruit is generally picked from the banks. They 

 difier from the ancient Mexican chinampas in not being' towed 

 from one place to another, but impaled on fixed stakes, which 

 keep them to their moorings, but allow them to rise and fall 

 Avith the level of tho water.^ 



The floating islands of the Chinese lakes are far more arti- 



^ Backhouse, ' Australia,' p. 172. 



- Humboldt, 'Essai Politique ;' Paris, 1811, vol. ii. p. 185, etc. 



•* Too'eiis, 'Travels iu Ladak,' etc. ; London, 1862, p. 271. 



