A \ Thousand-Mile Walk 
in wild Nature. She accomplishes her ends with- 
out unquiet effort, and perhaps there is nothing 
more mighty in the development of the flower- 
stem of the agave than in the development of a 
grass panicle. 
Havana has a fine botanical garden. I spent 
pleasant hours in its magnificent flowery ar- 
bors and around its shady fountains. There 
is a palm avenue which is considered wonder- 
fully stately and beautiful, fifty palms in two 
straight lines, each rigidly perpendicular. The 
smooth round shafts, slightly thicker in the 
middle, appear to be productions of the lathe, 
rather than vegetable stems. The fifty arched 
crowns, inimitably balanced, blaze in the sun- 
shine like heaps of stars that have fallen from 
the skies. The stems were about sixty or 
seventy feet in height, the crowns about fifteen 
feet in diameter. 
Along a stream-bank were tall, waving bam- 
boos, leafy as willows, and infinitely graceful in 
wind gestures. There was one species of palm, 
with immense bipinnate leaves and leaflets 
1 1 66 ] 
