Cypress. 
192 
of a palace in Grenada, that were large trees in the reign of 
Ardeli, the last Moorish monarch in Spain. These famous 
trees are known as Los Cypresses de la Reina Sultana, or the 
Oueen’s Cypresses, because under their shade the slandered 
princess was accused of having entertained her lover, Aben- 
cerrage. 
Evelyn goes into a long description of the manifold purposes 
to which the seeming imperishable wood of this tree has been 
put. “ It was used for harps and divers other musical instru¬ 
ments,” he remarks, “ it being a sonorous wood, and therefore 
employed for organ-pipes; resisting the worm, moth, and all 
putrefaction to eternity. What the uses of this timber are, 
he adds, “ the Venetians sufficiently understood, who did every 
twentieth year, and oftener (the Romans every thirteenth), 
make a considerable revenue of it out of Candy ; and certainly 
a very gainful commodity it was, when the fell of a plantation 
of cypresses was reputed a good portion for a daughter, and 
the plantation itself called Das filia. But there was in Candy 
a vast wood of these trees belonging to the Republic, by malice 
or accident, or perhaps by solar heat, set on fire, which • 
beginning anno 1400—continued burning for seven years before 
it could be extinguished, being fed for so long a space by the 
unctuous nature of the timber.Formerly the valves of 
St. Peter’s Church were formed of this material, which lasted 
from the great Constantine to Pope Eugenius IV.’s time- 
eleven hundred years—and then were found as fresh and entire 
as if they had been new. But this Pope would needs change 
them for gates of brass, which were cast by the famous Antonio 
Philarete: not, in my opinion, so venerable as those of cypress.” 
Thucydides states that the Athenians buried their heroes 
in coffins of this wood ; whilst the apparently indestructible 
chests in which the Egyptians placed their mummies are of the 
same material, and they have doubtless lain in theii resting- 
places for thousands of years. Vitruvius and Martial have 
celebrated the durability and beauty of this timber : the wild 
cypress especially was admired for this latter quality ; its roots 
were deemed incomparable for their crisped undulations. It 
was in great request amongst the Romans for beds and tables 
and, as such, Lucan is supposed to have alluded to it in his 
“ Pharsalia.” 
