It was perfectly cylindrical, branchless, and smooth, save, of course, the tiny prickles which beset the bark, for a height at which we could not guess, but which we luckily had an opportunity of measuring.

A wild pine grew in the lowest fork, and had kindly let down an air-root into the soil.

We tightened the root, set it perpendicular, cut it off exactly where it touched the ground, and then pulled carefully till we brought the plant and half a dozen more strange vegetables down on our heads.

The length of the air-root was just seventy-five feet.

Some twenty feet or more above that first fork was a second fork; and then the tree began.