.

[Footnote 37: On the Himalayas are oaks, birches, pines, chestnuts,
maples, junipers, and willows; no tree-ferns, bamboos, or palms.]

A very useful as well as the most ordinary plant in the valley is the
American aloe, or "Century Plant."[38] It is the largest of all herbs.
Not naturally social, it imparts a melancholy character to the landscape
as it rises solitary out of the arid plain. Most of the roads are fenced
with aloe hedges. While the majority of tropical trees have naked stems
with a crown of leaves on the top, the aloe reverses this, and looks
like a great chandelier as its tall peduncle, bearing greenish-yellow
flowers, rises out of a graceful cluster of long, thick, fleshy leaves.
When cultivated, the aloe flowers in much less time than a century; but,
exhausted by the efflorescence, it soon dies. Nearly every part serves
some purpose; the broad leaves are used by the poorer class instead of
paper in writing, or for thatching their huts; sirup flows out of the
leaves when tapped, and, as they contain much alkali, a soap (which
lathers with salt water as well as fresh) is also manufactured from
them; the flowers make excellent pickles; the flower-stalk is used in
building; the pith of the stem is used by barbers for sharpening razors;
the fibres of the leaves and the roots are woven into sandals and sacks;
and the sharp spines are used as needles. A species of yucca, resembling
the aloe, but with more slender leaves and of a lighter green, yields
the hemp of Ecuador.

[Footnote 38: The _Agava Americana_ of botanists, _cabulla_ of
Ecuadorians, _maguey_ of Venezuelans, and _metl_ of Mexicans. It is an
interesting fact, brought to light by the researches of Carl Neuman,
that the Chinese in the fifth century passed over to America by way of
the Aleutian Islands, and penetrated as far south as Mexico, which they
called the land of _fusung_, that being the celestial name of the aloe.
Terzozomoc, the high-priest of the ancient Mexicans, gave aloe leaves,
inscribed with sacred characters, to persons who had to journey among
the volcanoes, to protect them from injury.]

The "crack fruit" of Quito, and, in fact, of South America, is the
chirimoya.[39] Its taste is a happy mixture of sweetness and acidity.
Hanke calls it "a masterwork of Nature," and Markham pronounces it "a
spiritualized strawberry." It grows on a tree about fifteen feet high,
having a broad, flat top, and very fragrant flowers. The ripe fruit