A Palm Forest in the Tropics.
Certain palms affect the open savanna, others seek the solitudes of the forest, while still others are most frequently found midway between these two—that is, on the belt of land that separates forest from plain. Some palms, like the cocoa, seem to require an atmosphere that is slightly saline, and thrive best near the ocean’s shore. Others apparently attain their greatest development in marshes and lowlands, while others again demand the arid plain or the lofty mountain plateau.
In spite of their noble appearance and their aspect of perennial youth, palms, as a rule, are short-lived. None of them ever attain the age of the venerable patriarchs of our northern forests. According to Martius, the span of a palm’s life never exceeds that of a few generations of men. The areca catechu runs its course in forty or fifty years, the cocoa attains an age of one hundred or one hundred and twenty years at most, while the date palm, which probably lives the longest, usually rounds out its existence within the period of two centuries.
Some palms, like the Metroxylon, for instance, never survive fructification. It fruits but once, and then, as Martius so graphically expresses it, “nobilis arbor mox riget, perit et cadit”—the noble tree presently withers, perishes and falls. But, continues the same writer, “there is pleasure and solace in the thought that palms never die without yielding fruit, thereby insuring the continuance of the species.” And then, as is his wont when opportunity offers, he takes occasion from this circumstance to moralize as follows: “To labor, to flourish, to fructify is granted not only to the palm but to man also.”[23]
In the foregoing pages I have mentioned some of the countless uses made of palms, especially by the inhabitants of the tropics. It would, however, require a large volume to enumerate all the purposes for which they are employed. It can, however, safely be asserted that no family in the great vegetable kingdom more completely meets the necessities of millions of people than does that of the noble and ever-beautiful Palmaceæ.
Like Martius, we always found in the contemplation of the palm a source of special joy and peace. To him the palm was what literature was to Cicero, a consolation in trial and affliction, and the delight and inspiration of maturer years. In the palm we always found something to elevate the mind, something that fascinated us and stirred our emotions in a manner that often surprised us. For us, as for myriads of others who have lived and struggled and attained the goal of the heart’s desire, the palm was the emblem of victory, of a higher and better life beyond the tomb, of a happy, glorious immortality.
As we gazed in silent delight at the broad expanse of the green-carpeted savanna, adorned with the graceful, columnar shafts and feathery fronds of the ever-beautiful, ever-majestic palm, we could easily fancy ourselves in the valley of the Euphrates or in the plains of Babylon, as described by Herodotus and Xenophon. And, without any effort of the imagination, we could descry, in a palm-shaded village in the vista before us, Jericho, as Moses saw it, when the Land of Promise was a land of palms, as well as a land of milk and honey, and when Judea was so prolific in palms that one of its representatives was chosen as the symbol of the country.[24] We dreamed of Zenobia’s fair capital, Palmyra—the city of Palms—of the land of the Nile, where Isis and Osiris carried palms as the symbol of their fecund power. We recalled the enthusiastic words of the ancient poets—Hebrew and Greek—in praise of the gracefulness and magnificence of the palm, and the plaintive elegy of Abdul Rhaman, first calif of Cordoba, who, exiled from Damascus, his home, thus addresses the date palm, that reminds him of the land of his birth: “Thou, also, beautiful palm, art here a stranger. The sweet zephyr of Algaraba descends and caresses thy beauty. Thou growest in this fertile soil and raisest thy crown to the skies. What bitter tears thou would’st shed, if, like me, thou hadst feeling!”[25]
While thus musing on the glories of the past and contemplating the splendors of the present, which were passing in rapid succession before our enchanted vision, we instinctively repeated the words of the reverent poet-naturalist, Martius, who, contemplating the marvels of the tropical palm-world, expressed the depth of his emotion by the two words, Sursum corda—hearts heavenward!
Just then our reveries were suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted.
We had, early in the day, been congratulating ourselves on making our voyage down the river without delay and without accident. We were now within sight of Barranquilla and expected to land in less than an hour. We were in the full enjoyment of one of those delightful day-dreams that we always loved to indulge in, whenever Flora displayed before us, as she did then, her choicest treasures, when suddenly, without premonition of any kind, there was a violent lurch of the boat, a creaking and a crushing noise abaft, a quick stoppage of the engine, all of which indicated that something unusual, if not serious, had befallen our ill-fated craft. A hasty examination showed that the steamer had collided with a sunken tree, and that several of the float-boards of the stern-wheel had been loosened, or partially wrenched from their places. After considerable delay the boatmen were able so to repair the damage that we were able to continue on our journey, although at a reduced speed.