THE AGAVE AMERICANA. 
39 
colliery, others fitfully bursting forth, whilst others again 
stalked along with a steadily increasing and enlarging 
flarae, shooting oat great tongues of fire, which spared 
nothing as they advanced with irresistible might. At 
Darjiling the blaze is visible, and the deadened reports of 
the bamboos bursting is heard throughout the night ; but 
in the valley, and within a miie of the scene of destruc- 
tion, the effect is the most grand, being heightened by 
the glare rellected from the masses of mist which hover 
abova" 
The aloes form the strongest oontrast to the airy light- 
ness of the grasses, by the stately repose and strength of 
their thick, ileshy, and inflexible leiives. They generally 
stand solitary in the parched plains, and impart a pecu- 
liarly austere or melancholy chai'acter to the landscape. 
The real aloes are cbiedy African, but the American 
yuccas and agaves have a similar pliysiognomical char- 
acter. The Afjave amcrkana^ the usual oraament of our 
hothouses, bears on a short and massive stem a tuft of 
fleshy leaves, sometimes no less than ten feet long, fifteen 
inches wide, and eight inches thick ! After many years 
a flower-stalk twenty feet high shoots forth in a few 
weeks from the heart of the plant, expanding like a 
rich candelabrum^ and clustered with several thousands of 
greenish-yellow aromatic flowers. But a rapjd decline 
succeeds this brilliant efflorescence, for it is soon followed 
by the death of the exhausted plant. 
In Mexico, where the agave is indigenous, and whence 
it has found its way to Spain and Italy, it is reckoned 
one of the most valuable productions of Nature. At the 
time when the flower-stalk is beginning to sprout, the 
heart of the plant is cut out, and the juice, which other- 
wise would have nourished the blossom, collects in the 
hollow. About three pounds exude daily, during a period 
of two or three months. After standing for a short time, 
the sweet juice undergoes a vinous fermentation^ and the 
stranger, when once accustomed to its disagreeable odour, 
