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Updated: June 15, 2025
Among organic creations, this tree is undoubtedly, together with the Adansonia or baobab of Senegal, one of the oldest inhabitants of our globe. The baobabs are of still greater dimensions than the dragon-tree of Orotava. There are some which near the root measure 34 feet in diameter, though their total height is only from 50 to 60 feet.
Peculiar trees grew there: baobabs from the south; pines, oaks, and cedars from the north. Thanks to the art of gardeners, these trees lived some tens of years and reached a considerable height. The shady alley led to a gate which was as high as a house of three stories.
Palmtrees grew there, grapes, olives, figs with aerial roots, cypresses, even young baobabs. In the centre flowed a rivulet, and at the source of it, some hundreds of yards higher up, small gardens were visible.
It might be secured against the inundations which take place in the rainy season, by erecting little causeways a metre in height, at the most. There are in this island, principally on the east side, mangoes, palatuviers, a great quantity of gum trees, or mimosas, and magnificent Baobabs .
The point which seems most proper for an agricultural establishment, is Cape Belair, a league and a half to the leward of Goree: its soil is a rich black mould, lying on a bed of Lava, which seems to come from the Mamelles. It is there that other large vegetables, besides the Baobabs, begin to be more numerous, and which, farther on, towards Cape Rouge, cover, like a forest, all the shores.
Tutmosis had dwelt up to that time in the chambers of the pharaoh, but on the day of his marriage Ramses presented him with a beautiful little villa in the depth of the gardens, surrounded by a forest of fig trees, myrtles and baobabs, where the bridegroom and bride might pass days of happiness hidden from human eye, and cut off, as it were, from the world about them.
It is, in relation to their size, a forest planted with great trees, in comparison with which baobabs and sequoias are dwarfs.
On the 30th we arrived at Khonze, which is remarkable for the mighty globes of foliage which the giant sycamores and baobabs put forth above the plain.
We remark that while some of these giants are clad in their old leaves others are bright green with new foliage, while others are bare and broomy as English woods in midwinter. They are backed by a truly portentous vegetation of red and white mangroves, palms, plantains, and baobabs, rank guinea-grass filling up every gap with stalks and blades ten feet tall.
We were unable to ascertain the longitude of the lake, as our watches were useless; it may be between 22 Deg. and 23 Deg. E. The largest of the two baobabs was 76 feet in girth. The palmyra appears here and there among trees not met with in the south.
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