Baron Humboldt has remarked, that in Tropical countries various objects of nature announce the hour of the day far more plainly than they do in our climates. Not merely do leaves and flowers expand at more regular times, but the insect world presents to the observer a means of telling the hour both of day and night. Trains of those insects, which by their sting destroy the comforts of a residence in hot climates, have their regular periods of appearance and retirement, and are succeeded alternately by other trains, which are, by the American Indians, called respectively, sunrise, twilight, and nocturnal insects.

CHAPTER VIII.

MYRTLE MYRTLE IN ENGLAND: AT CAPE OF GOOD HOPE:

IN MADEIRA-FLOWERS OF

MOUNTAINS- JEW'S MYRTLE

MADEIRA MYRTLES ON

USE OF MYRTLE AT

FEAST OF TABERNACLES-MYRTLE OF JUDEA-SCENT OF MYRTLE-ANECDOTE OF ASTRINGENT

PROPERTY

OF MYRTLE-FRAGRANT ESSENCES-REGARD OF THE ANCIENTS FOR MYRTLE-MYRTLE WREATHS-USES OF MYRTLE AMONG THE SWISS-ALLSPICE TREE-CLOVE TREE.

And myrtle blooming on the sea-beat shore.

Sotheby's Virgil.

It is in Africa, or in the land of the East, the clime of the sun, or beneath the ever blue and smiling skies of southern Europe, that we must look for the myrtle hedges, so beautiful, so fragrant, and so often the theme both of ancient and modern poetry. In our own less congenial and continually varying climate, the odour of the myrtle, sweet though it be, is not very

powerful, and the favoured spots are few, where the shrub is so plentiful or so luxuriant, as to present anything like the groves of which the poets sing. Indeed the myrtle in most parts of England requires during winter the protection of the greenhouse, though there are some sheltered places where it will bear exposure. In Cornwall and Devonshire it well endures the winter, and grows around the garden bower, or against the wall of many a dwelling.

"Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade."

"The shrub consecrated to love," says a French traveller, "forms in Candia, hedges, thickets, etc., and is so common that it might almost be considered as the brambles of the country. Among the most striking ornaments of the gardens of the Cape of Good Hope are the myrtle hedges, which grow to a great height around every enclosure; "their blooming beauties waving over the head of the passenger; they unite their fragrance with the odoriferous exhalations, from the orange and lemon trees,

so abundant in that clime." Sometimes these luxuriant hedges extend for one or two miles, separating gardens, orchards, and other cultivated grounds.

In the Madeira isles the myrtle is very abundant, and grows to a considerable height. It is also found there at as great an elevation as 3000 feet above the level of the sea. It was seen formerly still more profusely covering the mountains of Madeira; but it has been cut down in large quantities by the Portuguese, to assist in adorning the churches on the festivals of the saints, or to be borne in those processions so frequent in Catholic countries.

The profusion of this shrub contributes greatly to the picturesque beauty of these renowned isles, where (as Mrs. Bowdich tells us) the flowers and fruits are so varied that one may see "the bright blue sky through the delicate pinnated leaves of the mimosa, while the wood strawberry at its feet recals the still dearer recollections of home," or partake either of the apple of Europe, or the tree of the Tropics-the grateful Banana.

In Australia the myrtle rears its ponderous trunk a hundred feet high before it expands into its umbrageous canopy of foliage.

It is among valleys formed by the ridges of elevated mountains that the myrtle attains its greatest perfection; and so often is it found shading the calm and peaceful vales which lie among the "eternal hills," "that," says a modern traveller, "it naturally becomes associated in the mind with all that is lovely and peaceful. It offered a chosen emblem of peace and quietude, and gave a living freshness to the annunciation of the angel mentioned by Zachariah, who said, as he stood among the myrtle trees, we have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold all the earth sitteth still and is at rest.'"

6

The Portuguese consider the wood of the myrtle the hardest which grows. That it was formerly valued for this quality, and used for warlike instruments, we know from Virgil,

"The war from stubborn myrtle shafts receives."