SANDAL— CEIBA— MAHOGANY— MORA. 



531 



higlit of a hundred feet, with a rugged, gray bark, small, white flowers, and polished 

 leaves, with a somewhat unpleasant odor. Owing to the difiBculty of carrying its heavy 

 beams, the natives cut it only near the banks of the rivers, down which it is floated to 

 the coast, whence large quantities are exported to every part of the colony. The 

 richly colored and feathery pieces are used for cabinet work, and the more ordinary 

 logs for building purposes, every house in the eastern province being floored and tim- 

 bered with satin-wood. 



The Sandal-tree^ which furnishes the sweet-scented, fine-grained wood, so highly 

 prized by the Chinese, and so much used in small cabinets, escritoires, and similar 

 articles, because no insect can exist within its influence, also deserves to be noticed as 

 one of the most valuable productions of the Malabar coast. It chiefly grows on rocky 

 hills, and, if permitted, would attain a tolerable size, but, from its great value, is gen- 

 erally cut down at an early stage. On low land and a richer soil it degenerates, and is 

 in all respects less esteemed. A variety of the same tree, but furnishing a wood of 

 inferior quality, grows on many of the South Sea Islands ; but in many parts the 

 excessive avidity of the traders has almost caused its total extirpation. The sandal is 

 a beautiful tree ; the branches regular and tapering ; the leaf like that of the willow, 

 but shorter and delicately soft. The blossoms hang in bunches of small flowers, either 

 red or white, according to the color of the wood. 



On turning our attention to America we find that Nature, delighting in infinite vari- 

 eties of development, and disdaining a servile copy of what she had elsewhere formed, 

 covers the earth with new and no less remarkable forms of vegetation. Thus, while in 

 Africa the baobab attracts the traveler's attention by its colossal size and peculiarity of 

 growth, the gigantic Ceiha {Bombax ceiha), belonging to the same family of plants, 

 raises his astonishment in the forests of Yucatan. Like the baobab, this noble tree rises 

 only to a moderate hight of sixty feet, but its trunk swells to such dimensions that fif- 

 teen men are hardly able to span it, while a thousand may easily screen themselves 

 under its canopy from the scorching sun. The leaves fall off in January ; and then at 

 the end of every branch bunches of large, glossy, purple-red flowers make their appear- 

 ^ ance, affording, as one may well imagine, a magnificent sight. In Guiana the savages 

 take refuge upon the ceiba trees during the inundations. The seeds have an agree- 

 able taste, and are frequently eaten, as well as the young and mucilaginous leaves. 



In British Honduras, in the neighborhood of Balize, and along the Motagua river, 

 the Mahogany tree (^Swietenia mahagoni) is found scattered in the forests, attracting 

 the woodman's attention from a distance by its light-colored foliage. Such are its 

 dimensions, and such is the value of peculiarly fine specimens, that in October, 1823, a 

 tree was felled which weighed more than seven tons, and cost, when landed at Liver- 

 pool, above £375 ; here it was sold for £525, and the expense of sawing amounted 

 to £750 more ; so that the wood of this single tree, before passing into the hands of 

 the cabinet-maker, was worth as much as a moderately sized farm. The African 

 mahogany wood is furnished by the near related Khaya senegalensis, which likewise 

 towers to the hight of a hundred feet, and has been transplanted to the Antilles. 



** Heedless and bankrupt in all curiosity must he be," says Waterton, *' who can 

 journey through the forests of Guiana without stopping to take a view of the towering 

 Mora. Its topmost branch, when naked with age, or dried by accident, is the favorite 

 resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike 



