Fortunate Islands 
satisfying and also yields an enormous harvest. Some 
doubt has been cast recently on the stories which one 
used to believe as to the amount of sago to be obtained 
from the various sago palms. But even if they required 
ten years to be mature, it is the actual trunk of a tree 
which is packed with this valuable food material. 
Yet from all these fortunate islands, Canaries, Madeira, 
Azores, Bahamas, Bermudas, and the South Sea Islands, 
it is difficult to call to mind either a race or an individual 
who has left any permanent impression on the world’s 
history. 
The softness of the life and the easiness of living seems 
to enfeeble and deteriorate every race which occupies 
them. 
But the flora of such islands is full of interest. Species 
continue to live in them which have died out in the 
stress of continental competition. Being clearly limited 
and of convenient size, they often show very distinctly 
the dependence of plants on special climates. They are 
also interesting from the problems which depend upon 
how they were first colonised. 
When one first visits Teneriffe one cannot help re- 
membering the classical description of Von Humboldt, 
and the neat limiting of its various floras according to 
the height above the sea. 
The zone of cultivation up to 1500 feet, the laurel 
woods from 1500 to sooo feet, the forest of pine from 
5000 to 8000 feet, and then the alpine plants to 9800. 
This is so very like a blackboard diagram and, what is per- 
haps not so often realised in these days, it is still, with cer- 
tain modifications, quite a true picture of the vegetation. 
The lower ground has been much altered by cultiva- 
tion and by grazing, but in the rugged barrancos one 
may still discover magnificent Sempervivums, those odd 
fleshy candelabra-like Euphorbias, and many other char- 
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