and some to Rome
and other places; but those who went to Palestine were thought to be the
most devout, both because it was so much farther off and because there
were so many sacred spots to visit there. These pilgrims always brought
home with them branches of palm, to show that they had really been to
the land where the tree grew; and so they were called _palmers_. To say
that such-a-one was a palmer was far more than to say that he was
a pilgrim."

"Miss Harson," said Clara, holding up one of the books, "here is a
picture called 'the cocoanut-palm,' but I didn't know that cocoanuts
grew on palm trees. Will you tell us something about it?"

[Illustration: COCOANUT-PALM TREES IN SOUTH-EASTERN AFRICA.]

"Certainly I will, dear," was the reply. "I fully intended to do so, for
the cocoanut-palm is too valuable a member of the family to be passed
over. This species does not grow in Palestine, and it is not one of the
trees of the Bible; its home is in the warmest countries, and it grows
most luxuriantly in the islands of the tropics or near the seacoast on
the main-lands. Although its general form is similar to that of the
date-palm, the foliage and fruit are quite different. The leaves are
very much broader, and they have not the light, airy look of the foliage
of the date-palm. But 'the cocoanut-palm is the most valuable of
Nature's gifts to the inhabitants of those parts of the tropics where it
grows, and its hundred uses, as they are not inaptly called, extend
beyond the tropics over the civilized world. The beautiful islands of
the southern seas are fringed with cocoanut-palms that encircle them as
with a green and feathery belt. The ripe nuts drop into the sea, but,
protected by their husks, they float away until the tide washes them on
to the shore of some neighboring island, where they can take root
and grow.'"

"Wouldn't it be nice," said Edith, "if some would float here?"

"A great many cocoanuts float here in ships," replied Miss Harson, "but
they would not take root and grow, because the climate is not suited to
them; it is too cold for them. We cannot have tropical fruit without
tropical heat, and I am sure that none of us would want such a change as
that. You may sometimes see small cocoanut trees in hothouses or
horticultural gardens, where they are shielded from our cold air. The
island of Ceylon, in the East Indies, is full of cocoanut-palm trees,
for they are carefully cultivated by the inhabitants, an