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Time seems to have little effect upon the baobab. Ages roll over it, and it still preserves its strength 
of frame and youthful appearance. It is yet young while nations which have arisen since its shoot first 
rose from the ground are known only by their names and past history: and cities have originated, crumbled 
to dust, and been forgotten, while it has gradually been advancing to maturity. It possesses the faculty of 
living for many centuries, and not only do its leaves remain green and beautiful, but the heart of its wood is 
light and tender. Its immense trunk, which is often 100 feet in circumference, though attaining to the 
height only of thirty feet, has in its interior a great quantity of pith, and when a mouldiness commences, 
as it frequently does in the internal part of the tree, caverns of twenty feet high and as many in diameter, 
are formed in the pith. In these caverns are deposited the bodies of the musicians, and of those bards 
who are found in most uncivilised countries, and who wander from place to place reciting verses and tales 
w'hich their rude imaginations have framed. Yet it is not, as you may suppose, from a love and reverence 
to what they might deem the remains of genius, that they give them a resting-place which a poet might 
deem so appropriate ; it is because they fancy that their superior endowments must have been imparted by 
an evil spirit ; and, though honouring and fearing these bards while living, they imagine that the presence 
of their dead bodies would defile the land and render it unfruitful, and so contaminate the sea as that the 
fish would perish. 
Many are the purposes to which the baobab is applied by the negroes. They use the leaves for giving 
a flavour to their broth, and for seasoning their meats. The fruit, which is in shape something like a cucum- 
ber but much larger, is when ripe full of a pleasant acid substance, which when dried in the sun becomes 
of a pulpy and spongy nature, and is still nutritious. When the fruit is in this dried state its rind is quite 
black and highly polished. 
The Africans consider the fruit of this tree of great value as a remedy in many complaints, and as a 
preventive to indisposition in general. The negroes about Cape Yerd possess the exclusive privilege of 
collecting the leaves and fruit of the baobabs which grow in that neighbourhood, and it is to the possession 
of this right, and their frequent application of its advantages, that the strength and courage for which they 
are remarkable are attributed by the Africans. 
The blossoms of the baobab are extremely beautiful. They are of a bright white colour and immensely 
large. They spread open their surfaces as soon as the day has fully dawned upon them, and close again at 
the approach of night, so that they have, by a French naturalist, been called belles de jour (beauties of 
the day.) 
The natives of Africa, though sunk in ignorance and accustomed to the daily sight of this phenomenon 
of nature, seem not so destitute of observation and natural taste as to behold it without interest; but, 
assembling in little groups during their season of flowering, they stand around the baobabs to await the 
rising of the sun ; and as soon as the flowers, according to their own language, awake from their sleep, they 
address them with the words, “Good day, sweet lady!” 
Not less remarkable than the tree which rises above, is the root which spreads its branches beneath, 
affording to the baobabs that firmness and support, without which the shock of one of the tempests, which 
in the course of ages must fiercely blow over its widely-extended surface, would level it with the dust. The 
central root is of an immense diameter, and extends below the ground to an unknown distance ; though the 
depth of the root is generally supposed to be greater than the height of the tree. But when we consider the 
great extent of surface which is presented to the winds by the foliage and branches of this tree, we must 
perceive that this central root, however firm, would not alone have been enough to keep the tree upright. 
Very large fibres or branches, extending to the distance of 100 feet, and being often three feet in diameter, 
spread from the main root, and thus by this arrangement the baobab is enabled to resist the elements. In 
the valley of the Two Gagnacks, a place at some distance from the Gambia, M. Golberry, a French traveller, 
met with the largest tree of this kind that he saw throughout Africa. Its circumference was 104 feet, but 
the height of its trunk was not above thirty feet. Its branches extended in every direction, and were pro- 
fusely covered with most beautiful foliage. The appearance of this astonishing tree was that of an arch, the 
surface of the baobabs being generally of a concave form. One part of the trunk of this patriarch of vege- 
tation had been severed by the hand of decay, and presented an opening to one of those caverns before 
mentioned, of twenty feet high, which are formed by the pith. 
“ The entrance of this cavern,” says our author, “ was about seventeen feet high, and the negroes of the 
valley had given it a very regular form. The upper part was composed of two curved lines which formed an 
angle somewhat resembling the Gothic arches. On the two sides of this entrance were carvings of flowers 
and animals. The representations were indeed of an uncouth nature, but their very imperfection gave a 
kind of impressive effect which was felt on contemplating this antique monument, which was entirely the 
work of nature, except those savage ornaments which seemed to indicate an antiquity far more remote than 
the discovery of Africa by the Europeans. The negroes had also filled up the interior of the cavern, and, 
though they had left the rough and rugged forms which characterise such a place, they had nevertheless 
polished the surface, and in many places had carved the figures of men and animals.” 
