e with us.
Doubtless the reader has seen the bush in bearing in our hothouses,
the fruit when cut being full of red seeds glistening like rubies.

The tamarind is a universal and thrifty tree in the island, lofty and
umbrageous, a quick grower and yet long-lived. The fruit is contained
in a pod,--like a full, ripe pea-pod,--covering mahogany-colored
seeds. The pulp when ripe and fresh is as soft as marmalade, and quite
palatable; its flavor is sugared acid. Steeped in water it forms a
delightful and cooling beverage, much used as a drink in the tropics.

The orange, lime, lemon, and citron are too well known to require
detailed description. The wild or bitter orange is much used for
hedges: its deep green glossy foliage and its fragrant blossoms and
its golden fruit make such hedges strikingly effective. The rind of
the bitter orange is used to make a sweetmeat with which we are all
familiar.

More than once the Moorish garden of the Alcazar, at Seville, and the
garden of Hesperides, at Cannes, were recalled in hours of delightful
wanderings among the orange groves of Cuba. Yet these latter are
neglected, or at least not generously cultivated, no such care being
given to them as is bestowed upon the orange orchards of Florida; but
the glowing sun and ardent breath of the tropics ask little aid from
the hand of man in perfecting their products. The fruits and flowers
of the American Archipelago--"air-woven children of light"--are not
only lavishly prolific, but perfect of their kind. No wonder that
scientists and botanists become poetical in their descriptions of
these regions.

The royal palm, so often alluded to, grows to the height of seventy
feet, more or less. It is singular that it should have no substance in
the interior of its trunk, though the outside to the thickness of a
couple of inches makes the finest of boards, and when seasoned is so
hard as to turn a board-nail at a single stroke of the hammer. It is
remarkable also that a palm tree which grows so high has such tiny,
thread-like roots, which, however, are innumerable. The top of the
palm yields a vegetable which is used as food and when boiled is
nutritious and palatable, resembling our cauliflower. Though there are
many species of palm in Cuba, one seldom sees the fan-palm, which
forms such a distinctive feature in equatorial regions as at Penang
and Singapore.

Humboldt thought that the entire island was once a forest of palms,
mingled with lime