native of Senegal, Guinea, and the countries on the west coast of Africa; but specimens have been found growing freely both in India and South America. Besides its botanical appellation, the Adansonia is known as the baʼobab, the monkey bread tree, and the Egyptian sour-gourd. The height of the trunk is moderate, varying from 50 to 60 feet, but its lateral bulk is almost incredible. In 1756, Adanson met with trunks in Senegambia having a diameter of 30 feet, and a circumference of 90; and Mr. Gilberry observed one having a circumference of 104 feet, though its height did not exceed 30. The branches are of considerable size, and 50 or 60 feet long; the central branch rises perpendicularly, the others spread round in all directions; and their extremities being bent toward the ground by the weight of their foliage, the whole tree presents the appearance of a vast hemispherical mass of verdure 140 or 150 feet in circumference. Indeed, a full-grown Adansonia, seen at a distance, almost presents the appearance of a forest; and it is not till the spectator has satisfied himself by a near inspection that he can be convinced that the luxuriant verdure above proceeds from a solitary stem. The leaves, which closely resemble those of the horse chestnut, are of a deep green: and it is said that Cape de Verd (literally, the Green Cape) takes its name from the circumstance of its being clothed with these gigantic trees. The flowers are white and penděnt, and, as may be expected from the size of the tree, very large, measuring when fully expanded, from 4 to 6 inches in diameter. A full grown Adansonia, clothed with its brilliant verdure and snowy blossoms, must therefore present a most magnificent spectacle; and we can fully appreciate the feelings that prompt the untutored negro to worship under its shade, and hail the opening of the flowers with a pious good morning. Another consideration connected with the baobab is the great age to which many individuals must arrive, as may be inferred from their enormous bulk. It is no doubt a very rapid grower, for a specimen in the Botanic Garden at Calcutta is said to have attained a cir-. cumference of 18 feet in twenty-six years; but when we multiply this ten or twentyfold, and make allowance at the same time for the slower increase of maturity, we can readily believe that many specimens now extant may have witnessed the revolutions of more than 2000 years. Adanson indeed looks upon it as the oldest living monųment on the globe; and taking his data from two specimens, which he examined in 1761, he calculates that some of the baobabs then flourishing on the coast of Africa, might have existed for 5000 years! This is obviously an erroneous calculation, founded on the increase by annual layers, as witnessed in temperate regions—a circumstance which is by no means constant, as there may in the tropics be two, three, or even more layers formed in one year, according to seasonal influences; but even after the necessary deductions, we are compelled to regard the Adansonia as alike the monarch and patriarch of the vegetable kingdom. Among the many astonishing features of Indian vegetation the Banyan, or sacred fig of the Hindoos, is one of the most curious and beautiful. Its branches bend towards the ground, take root, and thus form separate trees, which successively cover a vast space of ground, and furnish an agreeable and extensive shade in warm climates. Milton thus correctly describes its habit, where he speaks of its leaves as being those of which Adam and Eve "made themselves aprons:❞— "Soon they choose The fig tree; not that kind for fruit renowned- High over-arched, and echoing walks between." The banyan is the Ficus Indica of botanists, and belongs to the Artocarpeæ, or bread-fruit tribe. A specimen is mentioned by Marsden as growing in Bengal, which had fifty or sixty stems, with a total diameter of three hundred and seventy feet, and which afforded at noon a shadow, the circumference of which was one thousand one hundred and sixteen feet. There is another yet more gigantic still standing on the island of Nerbuddah, near Baroach, called the Cubbeer Burr. The tradition of the natives is, that this tree is three thousand years old; and it is supposed by some to be the same that was visited by Nearchus, one of Alexander the Great's officers. The large trunks of this tree amount in number to three hundred and fifty; the smaller ones exceed three thousand; and each of these is continually sending forth branchlets and hanging roots to form other trunks. The circumference of this remarkable plant is nearly two thousand feet. Roxburgh states that he found the banyan in the greatest perfection and beauty about the villages on the skirts of the Circar Mountains, where he saw some individuals whose branches were five hundred yards in circumference, and one hundred feet high; the principal trunk being more than twenty feet to the branches, and eight or nine feet in diameter. Though undoubtedly a tree of wonderful dimensions, the banyan must be regarded as a succession of independent stems, rather than as a single individual; for it is evident that some of the earlier rooting branches may exceed the pârent trunk in size, and that any of them being once rooted, would live and send forth new branches in arches and colonnades, though the original stem were utterly destroyed. The Dracaena or Dragon Tree is another of those gigantic plants which give character to the vegetation of intertropical countries. It is found abundantly in the East India islands, in the Canaries, Cape Verds, and along the coast of Sierra Leone. In ordinary cases, the erect trunk of the dracena does not exceed twelve or fourteen feet, but divides into a number of short branches, each ending in a tuft of spreading sword-shaped leaves, pointed at the extremity. The tree is palm-like in its growth, but belongs to the asparagus tribe of Jussieu, or, according to Dr. Lindley, to the Liliaceæ. It does not increase by external layers like the oak and fir, but enlarges after the manner of the palm, and therefore has not a trunk of true durable timber; nevertheless, some specimens have been known to grow to an enormous size, and to endure for many centuries. The most celebrated specimen on record is that of Orotava, in the island of Teneriffe, which in 1799 was found by Humboldt to be fortyfive feet in circumference, and about fifty or sixty feet in height. "The trunk," says the baron, "is divided into a great number of branches, which rise in the form of a °candelabra, and are terminated by tufts of leaves, like the yucca which adorns the valleys of Mexico. It still bears every year both leaves and fruit. Its aspect feelingly recalls to mind that eternal youth of nature' which is an inexhaustible source of motion and of life.”- Though continuing thus to grow, this tree has not perceptibly increased in size during the life of the oldest inhabitant, as its top branches, from the brittle nature of the wood, were constantly being broken down by the winds. In 1819 the greater part of its top was blown down; and in 1822 the venerable trunk was entirely laid prostrate by a tempest. The enormous bulk of this wonderful vegetable was noted so early as the time of Bethencourt in 1402, who described it as large and as hollow as it was found by Humboldt; hence the latter infers that, along with the Adansonia, the dracena of Orotava was one of the oldest inhabitants of our globe. The Courbarils of the primeval forests of Brazil are thus spoken of by Von Martius:-"The place where these prodigious trees were found, appeared to me as it were the portal of a magnificent temple, not constructed by the hands of man, but by the Deity himself, as if to awe the mind of the spectator with a holy dread of his own presence. Never before had I beheld such enormous trunks: they looked more like living rocks than trees, for it was only on the pinnacle of their bare and naked bark that foliage could be discovered, and that at such a distance from the eye, that the forms of the leaves could not be made out. Fifteen Indians, with outstretched arms, could only just embrace one of them. At the bottom they were eighty-four feet in circumference, and sixty feet where the boles became cylindrical!" We know too little of these vegetable leviathans to give a more minute account; but if they are as Martius describes, they may be justly considered as rivaling the Adansonias both in point of age and dimensions. CHAMBERS. CCIV. THE LADY'S DREAM. THE lady lay on her bed, Her couch so warm and soft, But her sleep was restless and broken still; From side to side, she muttered and moaned, At last she started up, And gazed on the vacant air, With a look of awe, as if she saw Some dreadful phantom there— And then in the pillow she buried her face, The very curtain shook, Her terror was so extreme, And the light that fell on the broidered quilt Kept up a tremulous gleam; And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried, "Oh me! that awful dream! 'The weary, weary walk, In the churchyard's dismal ground! And those horrible things, with shady wings, That came and °flitted round,— Death, death, and nothing but death, In every sight and sound! "And oh! those maidens young, Who wrought in that dreary room, With figures drooping, like spectres thin, pomp of pride, "For the pomp and pleasure of pride, We toil like Afric slaves, And only to earn a home at last, Where yonder cypress waves;And then they pointed-I never saw A ground so full of graves! "And still the coffins came, With their sorrowful trains and slow; Coffin after coffin still, A sad and sickening show,— From grief exempt, I never had dreamt "Of the hearts that daily break, "For the blind and the cripple were there, The naked, alas! that I might have clad,. "The sorrow I might have soothed, For many a thronging shape was there, Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, "Each pleading look, that long ago Woe, woe, for me if the past should be "No need of sulphurous lake, No need of fiery coal, But only that crowd of human kind Who wanted pity and 'dole In everlasting retrospect Will wring my sinful soul! "Alas! I have walked through life Too heedless where I trod; Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm, Forgetting that even the sparrow falls |