PREFACE. 



xxxix 



trees of both Indies ; the trunks are immense, and 

 are hollowed into canoes. In the first voyage of 

 Columbus, it is related that a canoe made of one 

 of these trees, was seen at the island of Cuba, which 

 was ninety-five palms in length, wide in proportion, 

 and capable of containing one hundred and fifty 

 men. It has been affirmed that some of these trees 

 in the West Indies are too large to be embraced 

 by sixteen men, and so high that an arrow cannot 

 be shot to their top. Another traveller, speaking 

 of some that he saw in Africa, asserts that tv»^enty 

 thousand men closely armed might, without in- 

 convenience to one another, stand under the 

 branches of one of them. Thevenot speaks of a 

 tree in the island of Stanchio, of which he says, it 

 has such a prodigious extent of shade, that it 

 would easily cover two thousand men ; that its 

 branches are supported by stone columns and pil- 

 lars of wood ; that there are under it several shops, 

 and benches to sit upon ; and that the tree is like 

 the Sycamore, except that the fruit resembles the 

 chestnut, and serves to tan leather"^. 



* Thevenot's Voyage de Levant, Part I. p. 210. 



