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But in the tropical university everybody passes his time in arcades of Greek or Pompeian airiness: the palm-trees wave and whisper around his head as he sits for coolness on his wide verandah; the humming-birds dart from flower to flower on the delicate bouquets that crowd his drawing-room.

"Palm-trees grow in numbers over the whole of the flat country," says one of the most observant and truthful of travellers Herodotus. According to the historians of Julian, a forest of verdure extended from the upper edge of the alluvium, which he crossed, to Mesene, and the shores of the sea.

The raft soon drifted into a lagoon, covered with waders and web-footed birds, which scarcely moved as we passed them, and some time was lost before we could regain the course of the stream. At length, guided by the palm-trees, our skiff glided between two banks bordered by trees, the high tops of which sheltered us with their shade.

There are galleries and seats everywhere; and little imagination is required to transport one's self to Oriental and Biblical scenes, with these palm-trees towering overhead. A short walk east of these gardens is the Matthai Cemetery, where repose the brothers Grimm.

But then another problem arose; we were running into a storm. It came with great suddenness; one minute all was still, with a golden sunset, and the next it was so dark that I could barely see the palm-trees, bent over, swaying madly like people with arms stretched out, crying in distress.

The guides led them over many ditches and channels, full of water, and cut for the purpose of irrigation ; some so broad and deep that they could not be crossed without bridges. The army had to put together bridges for the occasion, from palm-trees either already fallen, or expressly cut down. This was a troublesome business, which Klearchus himself superintended with peculiar strictness.

You have only to bend your arm, and suppose your shoulder to represent Edrington Castle, your hand Clarabad, and near the elbow you will have the spot where "ten cam' rowing owre the water;" a little nearer to Clarabad is the "lang dyke side," and immediately at the foot of it is the site of Tibby's cottage, which stood upon the Edrington side of the river; and a little to the west of the cottage, you will find a shadowy row of palm-trees, planted, as tradition testifieth, by the hands of Tibby's father, old Ned Fowler, of whom many speak until this day.

When the summit of a little pass on the south side of the valley is reached after a walk of about two miles, you look down through a gateway over the small valley and fishing village of Sedad, amongst the reed houses of which are many palm-trees and a thick palm garden belonging to Sayid Yussuf, which gives the one thing wanting to views about Maskat, namely, a mass of green to relieve the eye.

In these establishments, which were formed by the shade of two palm-trees, twenty pupils received the beginnings of knowledge. The simplicity of the instruction was aided by the zeal of the students, and learning grew beneath the palm-trees more quickly perhaps than in the magnificent schools of civilisation.

Sierra Leona abounds in palm-trees, and has some ananas, or pine-apples, with plenty of wood of all sorts, besides having an exceedingly convenient watering-place opposite to the anchorage. They sailed from Sierra Leona on the 4th September, on which day the admiral fell sick.