a forest of palm-trees. I had heard that
such existed in South America, Africa, and in the Indian countries, and
I had read some descriptions of them. But I now perceived that the most
glowing description can impart but a very imperfect idea of the
beautiful reality, for no work of Nature I have ever looked upon has
given me more delight than this--the aspect of a palm-wood. There are
many species of palms that do not grow in forests, but only as single
individuals, or groups of two or three together, in the midst of other
trees. Of course, too, there are many sorts of palms, more or less fine
looking, since it is believed that there are at least one thousand
species in existence. All are not equally beautiful to look upon, for
some are stunted, others have crooked stems; still, others have short
mis-shapen trunks; and not a few appear with their leaves on the surface
of the ground, as if without stems altogether.

The sort of palm, however, that constituted the forest into which my
companion and I had now penetrated, was one of the most magnificent of
the whole tribe. I did not then know what species it was, but since I
have learnt all about it. It was no other than the oil-palm, called by
the natives of Western Africa the "_Mava_," and by botanists "_Elais
Guiniensis_," which, when translated into plain English, means the
"oil-palm of Guinea."

It is a palm that somewhat resembles the beautiful cocoa, and by
botanists is placed in the same family. The trunk is very tall, of less
than a foot in diameter, and rising in a straight shaft to the height of
nearly a hundred feet. On the top is a splendid head of leaves like
gigantic ostrich plumes, that gracefully curve over on all sides,
forming a shape like a parachute. Each leaf is full five yards in
length, and of the kind called pinnate--that is divided into numerous
leaflets, each of which is itself more than a foot and a half long,
shaped like the blade of a rapier. Under the shadow of this graceful
plumage the fruit is produced, just below the point where the leaves
radiate from the stem. The fruit is a nut, about the size of a pigeon's
egg, but of a regular oval form, and growing in large clusters, after
the manner of grapes. Around the shell is a thick fleshy covering, very
similar to that which encloses the common walnut, only more of an oily
substance and glutinous texture, and it is from this very substance that
the oil is manufactured. Oil can al