132 
the Museum of Botany at Kew.” In place of growing larger 
in later years, the old tree was rapidly collapsing, when the 
Marquis of Sanzal came into possession of the Villa de 
Orotava, upon whose grounds the Dragon-tree stood. The 
Marquis at once put a stop to all depredation, and prohibited 
any pieces of the tree from being carried off by visitors. 
He further endeavoured to supply the abstracted portions 
of the trunk with masonry, trying thus to give a 
further chance of renewed life and vigour; for a few years 
these efforts had their reward, the veteran became the lion 
for all modern visitors to mount the steep and gaze at with 
pleasure and wonder. 
When C. Piazzi Smyth went on his astronomical inquiries 
in the Canaries in 1856, twenty-six years ago, he had leisure 
and opportunity for a careful examination of the old Dragon- 
tree, the results of which are charmingly told in his chapter 
on Dracaena Draco : “ Teneriff e, an Astronomical Experiment, 
by C. Piazzi Smyth, 1858, p. 800.” Above all, he was able 
to take several photographs of the old tree, as well as of 
younger and more normal specimens of the Dracaena. He 
describes the perilous state of the old tree from the unequal 
level of the ground, and says it was nearly smothered about 
the trunk with laurels, oranges, peach, and other trees, and 
a rivulet — at times a torrent — flowed along its front. It 
had been known by the natives as a landmark betwixt 
properties adjoining for centuries. He measured it as 60 feet 
high and 48 J feet circumference at that height, it was 28*8 
feet circumference at the part where the branches spring 
out from the trunk, and at 6 feet from the ground was 35 
feet 6 inches in circumference. But he says : “ this is no 
proper tree with woody substance, it is merely a vegetable. 
