sizes, from the dwarf bamboo, as slender as a wheatstalk, and only two feet high, to the Bambusa maxima, as thick as a man's body, and towering to the height of a hundred feet.

Ere man learned

THE groves were God's first temples.

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,1

And spread the roof above them, ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,

Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down

And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks
And supplication. Let me, then, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn - thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in his ear. —

Father, thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns; thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,

Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,

1 ar'chi-trave, the lower division of an entablature.

As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show,

The boast of our vain race to change the form

-

Of thy fair works. But thou art here, thou fill'st The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds

That run along the summit of these trees

In music; thou art in the cooler breath,

That, from the inmost darkness of the place,

Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with thee.

My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me, the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works, I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die, — but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth,
In all its beautiful forms. O, there is not lost
One of earth's charms; these lofty trees

Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Molder beneath them.

Then let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink

And tremble, and are still. Oh! God, when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,

The swift, dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities, who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?

1. LINNÆUS has well called the tall and crested palm

trees "the princes of the vegetable

world," for wherever they bloom they enrich the landscape with their grace and majesty. The most perfect of the family have a tall cylindrical stem, which shoots upward from the earth, without knot or blemish, like an Ionic column; springing to an immense height, and yet so symmetrical that its slenderness conveys no idea of feebleness. The summit bears a crown of emerald-green plumes, like a diadem of gigantic ostrich-feathers. These are

DATE-PALM.

frequently twenty feet long, droop slightly at the ends, and rustle musically in the breeze.

2. In the arid desert it forms an object of peculiar beauty, as it soars, erect and graceful, near some welcome spring of living waters, a landmark to the way worn traveler. But to see it in all its glory you should visit the palm-groves of tropical America or Polynesia, and wander enchanted in their grateful shades. Under the natural screen which their thick green feathery branches supply, the orange and the lemon, the pomegranate, the olive, the almond, and the vine flourish in wild luxuriance, and yield an abundance of luscious fruit. And, while the eye is never weary of gazing on the glorious blossoms which brighten and adorn the scene, the ear is also ravished with the sweet clear melody of numerous birds, attracted to the palm-grove by its cool shadows, its fruits, and its crystal springs.

3. In Ceylon and Malabar one of the principal palms is the remarkable talipat, or umbrella palm, sometimes called the great fan-palm, which frequently reaches a height of a hundred feet. It is straight as a giant's spear, five feet in circumference at the foot, and tapers toward the summit, where it terminates in a magnificent crown of enormous plaited leaves. Each leaf, near the outer margin, is divided into numerous segments, and united to the trunk by spiny leaf-stalks. It usually measures about eighteen feet in length, exclusive of the leaf-stalk, and about fourteen feet in breadth, so that a single leaf will form an excellent canopy for a score of men.

4. This palm is employed for many important purposes, such as roofing houses or making tents. The Singalese noble, on state occasions, is always followed by an atten

dant bearing above his head a richly ornamented talipat leaf, which can be folded up, like a fan, into a roll of the thickness of a man's arm, and is wonderfully light. In Malabar the leaves are used as a substitute for paper, after a preliminary process of boiling, drying, damping, rubbing, and pressing. The oil employed in coloring the writing preserves them from insects, but changes with age, so that a Singalese determines the date of a book by carefully smelling of it.

5. All the palms serve the needs of man. What would become of the wanderer in the deserts of Arabia and Barbary should the date-palm suddenly become extinct? Thousands of human beings would inevitably perish, for the inhabitants of Fezzan live wholly upon its saccharine and delicious fruit for nine months of the year. In Egypt, Arabia, and Persia it forms the principal food of the people, and a man's wealth is computed by the number of date-palms be possesses. When dried, the fruit becomes an important commercial staple. Cakes of dates, pounded and kneaded until solid enough to be cut by a hatchet, supply the provision of the African caravans on their toilsome journey through the wastes of the Sahara.

6. To the inhabitant of Northern Africa the date is food, comfort, wealth, nay, life. It is easy to understand the gratitude cherished by the Arab towards the date-palm. It thrives in the sandy waste, draws sustenance from brackish water fatal to almost every other plant, preserves its freshness when all around it decays. and withers under the rays of an implacable sun, and resists the tempests which bow its flexible crest but cannot tear up its solidly planted roots. Without this tree the nomadic tribes of this region must cease to exist.