photographs--the Mango must be indeed the queen of trees;
growing to the size of the largest English oak, and keeping always
the round oak-like form. Rich in resplendent foliage, and still
more rich in fruit, the tree easily became encircled with an
atmosphere of myth in the fancy of the imaginative Hindoo.

That tree with upright branches, and large, dark, glossy leaves
tiled upwards along them, is the Mammee Sapota, {311a} beautiful
likewise. And what is the next, like an evergreen peach, shedding
from the under side of every leaf a golden light--call it not shade?
A Star-apple; {311b} and that young thing which you may often see
grown into a great timber-tree, with leaves like a Spanish chestnut,
is the Avocado, {311c} or, as some call it, alligator, pear. This
with the glossy leaves, somewhat like the Mammee Sapota, is a
Sapodilla, {311d} and that with leaves like a great myrtle, and
bright flesh-coloured fruit, a Malacca-apple, or perhaps a Rose-
apple. {311e} Its neighbour, with large leaves, gray and rough
underneath, flowers as big as your two hands, with greenish petals
and a purple eye, followed by fat scaly yellow apples, is the Sweet-
sop; {311f} and that privet-like bush with little flowers and green
berries a Guava, {311g} of which you may eat if you will, as you may
of the rest.

The truth, however, must be told. These West Indian fruits are,
most of them, still so little improved by careful culture and
selection of kinds, that not one of them (as far as we have tried
them) is to be compared with an average strawberry, plum, or pear.

But how beautiful they are all and each, after their kinds! What a
joy for a man to stand at his door and simply look at them growing,
leafing, blossoming, fruiting, without pause, through the perpetual
summer, in his little garden of the Hesperides, where, as in those
of the Phoenicians of old, 'pear grows ripe on pear, and fig on
fig,' for ever and for ever!

Now look at the vegetables. At the Bananas and Plantains first of
all. A stranger's eye would not distinguish them. The practical
difference between them is, that the Plaintain {311h} bears large
fruits which require cooking; the Banana {312a} smaller and sweeter
fruits, which are eaten raw. As for the plant on which they grow,
no mere words can picture the simple grandeur and grace of a form
which startles me whenever I look steadily at it. For however
common it is--n