Aloe. 
97 
*• Ah, what shall I be at fifty, 
Should Nature keep me alive? 
If I find the world so bitter 
When I am but twenty-five.” 
H ow few can turn from this bitterness, and regard our chosen 
bloom, as Burckhardt tells us the Mahommedans do, as the em¬ 
blem of patience , which, indeed, its Arabic name of saber signi¬ 
fies ! In the neighbourhood of their sacred city, Mecca, this 
same authority states that at the extremity of almost every 
grave, on a spot facing the epitaph, is planted an aloe, as an 
allusion to the patience which it is necessary for us to exercise 
in enduring that length of time which must elapse between 
now and the great day of resurrection. 
In Edgar Foe’s beautiful, though boyish, poem of “A1 
Aaraaf,” we find a certain species of aloe represented as quite 
the reverse of its Oriental florigraphical meaning of patience ; 
for, says that melodious poet, 
“That aspiring flower that sprang on earth, 
And died ere scarce exalted into birth, 
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing 
Its way to heaven from gardens of a king.” 
The flower alluded to was an aloe that St. Pierre speaks of as 
cultivated in the king’s garden at Paris. Its large and beautiful 
flower, says the French author, exhales a strong odour of the 
vanilla during the time of its expansion, which is very short. 
It does not blow till towards the month of July; you then 
perceive it gradually open its petals, expand them, fade, and 
die. Sic transit gloria mundi. 
Elsewhere, St. Pierre, speaking of the aloe, says, “Nature 
seems to have treated the Africans and Asiatics as barbarians, 
in having given them these at once magnificent yet monstrous 
vegetables; and to have dealt with us as beings capable of 
sensibility and society. Oh, when shall I breathe the perfume 
of the honeysuckle?—again repose myself upon a carpet of 
milk-weed, saffron, and bluebells ? — once more hear Aurora 
welcomed with the songs of the labourer blessed with freedom 
and content?” From the specimens of the aloe seen in this 
country, one would feel inclined to fancy that its utility far 
surpassed its beauty; but many who have seen it growing in 
its native land, and in full flower, assert that its elegance and 
loveliness are only rivalled by its extraordinary usefulness. 
