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Page 34
"I strongly advise you to do so. Ponto is a gentleman of honour and
intelligence, I feel convinced. I think he will learn his neighbourly
duties, and if he does do so as well as Dash did--whatever you may think
of Mr. Mackinnon--I think Mr. Mackinnon will soon cease to regard Ponto
as--a nasty next-door neighbour."
THE PRINCES OF VEGETATION.
This fanciful and high-sounding title was given by the great Swedish
botanist, Linn�us, to a race of plants which are in reality by no means
distantly allied to a very humble family--the family of Rushes.
The great race of Palms puzzled the learned Swede. He did not know where
to put them in his system; so he gave them an appendix all to
themselves, and called them the Princes of Vegetation.
The appendix cannot have been a small one, for the Order of Palms is
very large. About five hundred different species are known and named,
but there are probably many more.
They are a very beautiful order of plants; indeed, the striking elegance
of their forms has secured them a prominence in pictures, poetry, and
proverbs, which makes them little less familiar to those who live in
countries too cold for them to grow in, than to those whose home, like
theirs, is in the tropics. The name Palm (Latin, _Palma_) is supposed to
have been applied to them from a likeness in the growth of their
branches to the outspread palm of the hand; and the fronds of some of
the fan-palms are certainly not unlike the human hand, as commonly drawn
by street-boys upon doors and walls.
So beautiful a tree, when it flourished in the symbol-loving East, was
sure to be invested with poetical and emblematical significance.
Conquerors were crowned with wreaths of palm, which is said to have been
chosen as a symbol of victory, because of the elasticity with which it
rises after the pressure of the heaviest weight--an explanation,
perhaps, more appropriate to it as the emblem of spiritual triumphs--the
Palm of Martyrdom and the Palms of the Blessed.
But as a religious symbol it is not confined to the Church triumphant.
Not only is the "great multitude which no man can number" represented to
us as "clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands"--the word
"palmer" records the fact that he who returned from a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land was known, not only by the cockle-shell on his gown, but by
the staff of palm on which he leant. St. Gregory also alludes to the
palm-tree as an accepted emblem of the life of the righteous, and adds
that it may well be so, since it is rough and bare below, and expands
above into greenness and beauty.
The palm here alluded to is evidently the date palm (_Phoenix
dactylifera_). This is pre-eminently the palm-tree of the Bible, and was
in ancient times abundant in the Holy Land, though, curiously enough, it
is now comparatively rare. Jericho was known as "the city of palm-trees"
in the time of Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 3). It is alluded to again in the
times of the Judges (Judges i. 11; iii. 13), and it bore the same title
in the days of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxviii. 15). Josephus speaks of it as
still famous for its palm-groves in his day, but it is said that a few
years ago only one tree remained, which is now gone.
It was under a palm that Deborah the prophetess sat when all Israel came
up to her for judgment; and to an audience under the shadow of this
tree, which bore her name, that she summoned Barak out of
Kedesh-naphtali. Bethany means "the House of Dates," and the branches of
palm which the crowd cut down to strew before our Lord as He rode into
Jerusalem were no doubt of this particular species.
Women--as well as places--were often named after the Princes of
Vegetation, whose graceful and stately forms approved them to lovers and
poets as fit types of feminine beauty.
Usefulness, however, even more than ornament, is the marked
characteristic of the tribe. "From this order (_Palm�_)," says one
writer, "are obtained wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, salt, thread,
utensils, weapons, habitations, and food"--a goodly list of the
necessaries of life, to which one may add many smaller uses, such as
that of "vegetable ivory" for a variety of purposes, and the materials
for walking-sticks, canework, marine soap, &c., &c.
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