der it. Its dense foliage, promising protection from dew, or
even rain, if it should fall, appeared to invite us; and we were
resolved to accept its proffered hospitality.

It was only when we got very close to it, that we perceived the true
nature of this singular grove--and then we noticed a peculiarity that
astonished us. Instead of a grove covering nearly an acre of ground, as
we had conjectured, you may fancy our surprise on perceiving that the
hole copse consisted of but one tree!

Sure enough there was only one tree, and it was the vast umbrageous head
of leaves and flowers that we had mistaken for a whole grove!

But such a tree was that! If we had been astonished by the dragon-tree,
our astonishment was now more than doubled, on beholding the gigantic
monarch of trees, that now spread widely before our eyes. The
dragon-tree sank into a shrub in comparison with it.

If I were to give the dimensions of this enormous vegetable, I should
scarce be credited, but fortunately its giant proportions do not rest on
my authority alone. Trees of a similar kind, and of the very same
species, have been described by botanists, and therefore their vast size
is well-known to the scientific world.

The one discovered by Brace and myself had a trunk of full a hundred
feet girth. I cannot speak exactly, as I had no measuring string, and
it would have taken a pretty long cord to have gone round it: but Ben
measured it carefully with his arms, and pronounced it to be
"twenty-five fadoms." Now Ben's "fadoms" were good fathoms, for he was
a long armed man; and, therefore I conclude that the trunk was at least
a hundred feet in circumference. At the height of about a dozen feet
from the ground the trunk forked into a number of great branches, each
of which was like a tree of itself; and, in fact, some of them were far
thicker than most trees of the forest. These branches stretched out for
many yards--at first horizontally, but as they tapered towards a point,
they began gradually to curve downwards, until their extreme ends--the
topmost twigs with their leaves--quite touched the earth. It was for
this reason we had not been able to see the main trunk as we approached.
The foliage of the outer boughs concealed it from the view, and hence
had we mistaken the single tree for a grove or coppice. It the more
resembled this on account of its height; for, as already observed, its
topmost branches did not exceed thirty or forty