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NEW PUBLICATION. 275
white Convolvulus, which flowers all night, and at the first rays of the rising
sun begins to wither, was still in full bloom when we left Jinotega, and after
riding in a south-easterly du-ectiou about seven leagues over a rough, stony
road, we arrived at Matagalpa, the capital of the department of the same name.
One of the first buildings on entering the town, for I suppose I must caU it a
town, though we in Europe would call it a mere village, was a flour-mill, the
only one I had seen in the country, Wheat being grown in some of the hills in
the neighbourhood, but the flour prepared from it proving very dark and
coarse."
The subsequent pages describe Dr. Seemann's return to Leon, and
his departure from there to Chontales.
" Passing and stopping for a few hours at Pueblo Nuevo, with its curious
Cactus fences, I put up for the night at Nagarote, where I measured a famous
Genisaro tree (Pithecolobium Saman, Benth.), belonging to the Mimosa tribe,
of which the villagers are justly proud, and for which 200 dollars have been
ofiered—a high price in a country where timber abounds ; and yet tlaey had
the pubhc spirit— the rarest of virtues in a Spanish American—to refuse the
ofier (others say the Grovernment made them refuse). The tree, of which a
woodcut is given in Squier's ' Central America,' is but 90 feet high ; but some
of the lower branches, which are quite horizontal, are 92 feet long and 5 feet
in diameter. The stem, 4 feet above the base, is 21 feet in cu'cumference, and
the crown of the tree describes, a circle of 348 feet. A whole regiment of
soldiers may seek repose in its shade.
" If this vegetable monster had been a denizen of any part of tlie eastern
hemisphere, it would have become a fit object of tree-worship, that singular
religion which flourished long before temples and churches were thought of,
and which enjoyed a more extensive geographical range than any creed has
done since. At one time it was difi'used over the whole of Europe, Asia,
Africa, and Polynesia. Throughout Europe and some islands of Polynesia it
has been supplanted by Christianity , in parts of Asia and Africa by Mohammedanism
; but nowhere have its rites been enth'ely suppressed. Deprived of
their religious character and import, many of them have survived to this day,
eveiywhere associated with mu-th, good feeling, and festivity. JSTo trace of
tree-worship has been noticed amongst the natives of Australia, nor amongst
those of the New World, though it had penetrated to the easternmost islands
of Polynesia. The fact is most singular, as no continent boasts of such magnificent
and venerable trees as America. In the virgin forests of Brazil there
are trunks of such gigantic size that fifteen Indians with outstretched arms
could hardly span them ; trunks wliich, by counting the concentric rings of
their wood, must have been in existence when Homer wrote his immortal
poem. In Upper California and along the whole north-western coast of
America the vegetations attains enormous dimensions and age. Three hundred
feet is no uncommon height for a ti-ee, and some of the Wellingtonias overtop
St. Peter's, and almost rival the height of the pinnacle of Cheops, wliilst their
age is such that they must have been in fidl growth long before the Saxon invasion
of England. Yet these peculiarities do not seem to have made any impression
on the mind of the American Indian, evidently proving that size,
venerable look, and age of trees are not sufficient to account for their worship
by the largest section of the human race. Indeed, tree-worship can scarcely
have sprung from simple admiration. We have plenty of people among us
with a strong leaning that way, and can pretty well judge of its range and
scoi^e. The Rev. Charles Young tells us that from childhood, notliing in
natm'e had a greater attraction for him than trees, and a giant tree, such as