CHAPTER V. 
Flora of the Isles of Summer. The Fertilizing Air. Large Trees from 
Stone Quarries, and upon the Tops of Stone Walls. Trees that will not Die 
and cannot be Killed. Trees Within Trees. The Monkey Tamarind, the 
Wild Fig, and the Ceiba or Silk Cotton Trees. Thompson's Folly. Palin 
Trees—the Cocoanut, the African, the Cabbage and the Palmetto. The India 
Rubber Tree. The Singing Tree. The Tamarind Trees, and Trees Valuable 
for Timber, for Dyes, for their Spicy Bark, and for Medicinal Purposes. 
The Natural more Wonderful than the Supernatural. 
“And all the broad leaves over me 
Clapped their little hands in glee, 
With one continued sound, — 
A slumbrous sound, a sound that brings SES 
The feeling of a dream.” 
WHEN visiting for the first time the isles of unending summer, 
one cannot fail to be deeply impressed by their new, diversified, 
and curious forms of vegetable life. It matters not that he is 
not a close observer of nature, or an educated and trained botan- 
ist. Perhaps if he were he could not, by reason of his profound 
technical learning, so well communicate to common minds, the 
impressions and thoughts which such scenes make and inspire. 
The learning of some seems to make them useful only to scholars. 
Upon the island of New Providence we trod what was to us a 
new world, and every climbing vine and flowering shrub, and 
branching tree ministered to our happiness. We seemed to our- 
selves to be a newly made Adam first introduced to his garden, 
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