A Thousand-Mile W alb 
tentment which is an attribute of the best of 
God’s plant people was as impressively felt 
in this alligator wilderness as in the homes of 
the happy, healthy people of the North. 
The admirable Linneus calls palms “the 
princes of the vegetable world.” I know that 
there is grandeur and nobility in their char- 
acter, and that there are palms nobler far than 
these. But in rank they appear to me to stand 
below both the oak and the pine. The motions 
of the palms, their gestures, are not very grace- 
ful. They appear to best advantage when per- 
fectly motionless in the noontide calm and in- 
tensity of light. But they rustle and rock in 
the evening wind. I have seen grasses waving 
with far more dignity. And when our northern 
pines are waving and bowing in sign of wor- 
ship with the winter storm-winds, where is the 
prince of palms that could have the conscience 
to demand their homage! 
Members of this palm congregation were of 
all sizes with respect to their stems; but their 
glorious crowns were all alike. In develop- 
[ 116 J 
