feet in clear altitude.
It was therefore not the tallest tree in the world, though it was
certainly one of the thickest.

Now it so chanced that I knew what kind of tree it was--even to its
name; my "wonder book" had not omitted to describe the vegetable
curiosity. It was the great _baobab_.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

I knew that the tree had other names as well as baobab; that the negroes
of Senegal call it the "monkey's bread-tree," the "sour gourd," and
"lalo plant," and my book had been minute enough to give the botanical
name, which is _Adansonia_--so called from a distinguished French
botanist, of the name of Adanson, who, long ago, travelled through
western Africa, and was the first to describe this wonderful tree. I
even remembered Adanson's description of it, and his statement, that he
believed there were some baobab trees five thousand years old, or coeval
with the creation of the world. He had himself measured some of them
seventy-five feet in girth, and had heard of others that exceeded one
hundred! This I could now believe. I remembered, moreover, that he had
stated, that the fruit of the tree was a large oblong body, full nine
inches long, of a dull greenish colour, and covered over the surface
with a hoary down; that it was like a gourd, and when opened exhibited
several cells, with hard shining seeds, immersed in a soft pulp; that
out of this pulp, the natives, where the tree grew, manufactured an
aciduous drink that was good for curing fevers; that the leaves when
dried and bruised, were, by the same people, mixed with their food, to
counteract too profuse perspiration; that moreover, the larger leaves
are used for covering their huts, and out of the bark they manufactured
a sort of cordage, and also a coarse kind of cloth, which the poorer
people wore around their thighs, forming a covering that reached from
the waist to the knees. Vessels, also, were procured from the outside
shell of the fruit, which served in the same manner as those obtained
from the gourd or calabash-tree.

All these things did I remember at that moment, and intended to
communicate them to my companion as soon as we had got fixed for the
night; but as yet we had only arrived on the ground, and had learnt
nothing more about the gigantic vegetable, than that it was all one
single tree, for we could still make out the main trunk through the
glimmer of the twilight. Of course the measurement made by Brace was an
after per