7i WONDERS OF THE TROPICAL FORESTS. 
fruit is liable to a variety of accidents ; drougbts injure 
the tree, locusts destroy tlie produce, and thus tlie date 
crop, like most productions wliJcli men are imprudent 
enough to adopt singly as the staff of life, is subject to 
failure. 
Towards the equator the date -tree disappears, while 
tbe Doum, distinguished ii'om most other palms by its 
branching trnnk^ each branch Ijeing Burmounted by a tuft 
of large stifiF fiabelliform leaves, assumeg a conspicuous 
place in the landscape. Its fruits, which are of the size 
of a small apple, and covered with a tough yellow lustrous 
rind, have a sugary taste, and serve for the preparation of 
sherbet. The old leaf-stalks with their thorns and sheathes, 
which remain attached to the trunk, render the task of 
climbing it next to impossible. The chief seat of this 
beautiful palm are the banks of the Nile, in the region 
of the cataracts. In Kordofan the Delebl palms Ibrm 
large clumps with tamarinds, cassias, adansouias, and 
various mimosas. Straight as an arrow and perfectly 
smooth-rinded, this magnificent tree I'ises to the height 
of a hundred feet, bearing large fan-like leaves, attached 
to foot-stalks ten feet long, and armed with mighty 
thorns. From ten to twenty large bunches of nuts, 
as big as a man's head, liang beneath the fronds, but 
nn fortunately these fiBe-looking fruits disappoint the 
taste. 
Thus various forms of palms fiourisb along the banks 
of the Nile, but in general Africa has a smaller variety 
of these trees to boast of than either Asia or America. 
On the other hand, the forests of Brazil have no palras 
at all comparable in commercial importance to the Cocos 
butyracea and the Ehvis gunieensis, the oil-teeming fruit- 
trees of tropical West Africa. The productivenei>a of the 
Elteis may be inferred from its bearing clusters of from 
600 to 800 nuts, larger than a pigeon's egg, and so full 
of oil that it may be pressed out with the fingers. As 
long as the slave trade reigned along the coast of Guinea, 
