254 AN AMERWAN KEW. 



rounded at short intervals by wooden balconies, and the roof is of a 

 concave conical shape, like a raandarin's hat. I never sawany signs of 

 life in this tower, and do not know what it is used for; but I have 

 heard that the son-in-law of Lord Capel (who first laid out Kew 

 Gardens soiue two hundred years ago) added to the importance of the 

 place by raaking it the head-quarters of English astronoray ; and this 

 tower, which certainly would make an exeellent observatory, may have 

 had something to do with that. 



Beyond the fower extends a broad, straight path, between well-kept 

 lawns, on which are planted trees of both native and foreign growth. 

 Towards the river, on tlie ieft, the grounds are irregular and diversified 

 with clumps of trees, ponds, aud grassy undulations. On the right, 

 concealed by a hedge of foliage, is the highway between Richmond and 

 London. Before us, at the cnd of the walk, is an iron fence, dividing 

 the inner enclosure — the Botanical Gardens proper — from this outer 

 region. We reach it in due titne, and, having passed the gate, are in 

 the imraediate neighborhood of the palm-house, whose bulbous domes 

 we saw just now from the river bank. It is as beautiful a piece of 

 glass building as ever I saw, handsomely proportioned, and of noble 

 outline. Its great size is somewhat concealed by its charraing syra- 

 metry ; but when we are within, the vast diraensions are realized. 

 Beneath its central dorae the tallest palms rise unimpeded. You peep 

 through long vistas of broad green fronds and slender, bending stems : 

 it broadens and reaches out on every side ; the strange, exotic foliage 

 rejoices the eye, and the warm, erabracing atraosphere raakes you feel 

 tliat you are in the tropics. 



To one who, like myself, pretends to no scientific knowledge of 

 botany, and who, during these temperate summers and fitful winters, 

 often hankers after the equator, the atmosphere of a thorough-going 

 conservatory has a profound fascination. At one step I pass from the 

 latitude of " the roaring forties" to that of Martinique or the Galapagos 

 Islands. I unbutton my coat, and inhale deep breaths of air laden 

 witli the fragrance of the sun-lands. The heat is not enervating, but 

 stimulating; for it is redolent with the life-giving emanations of plants 

 that riot in luxuriance all the" year round, — that know neither spring, 

 autumn, nor winter, — whose multitudinous boughs were raade to be the 

 haunt of paroquets and raonkeys, and amidst whose fern-enwrapped 

 roots lurk lizards and gliding serpents. Here thrive the dark-skinned 

 races of the torrid zone, innocent of clothes and civilization, seeking 

 excitement not in the mutations of the stock-exchange or the scandals 

 of society, but in trapping the alligator and shooting the jaguar and 

 the antelope with arrows deadly with curari. Iuto the intricate depths 

 of these jungles the fierce sun scarcely penetrates ; the unstinted energy 

 of his own rays has erected a barrier against hiraself. Here, when the 

 rain falls, it falls in rushing torrents; when the wind blows, it blows a 

 shrieking hurricane ; when the lightning flashes, the whole dorae of 

 heaven is ablaze with passionate splendor. Here the stars poise and 

 smoulder close to the earth, and the moon is brighter than the sun of 

 hyperborean England. Sitting on a rustic bench hedged round with 

 tapering palm-steras, and screened by leaves two or three of which 



