The Cow Tree.

Amidst the great number of curious phenomena which I have observed in the course of my travels, I confess there are few that have made so powerful an impression on me as the aspect of the cow tree.

Whatever relates to milk or to corn, inspires an interest which is not merely that of a physical knowledge of things, but is connected with another order of ideas and sentiments.

We can scarcely conceive how the human race could exist without farinaceous substances, and without that nourishing juice which the breast of the mother contains, and which is appropriate to the long feebleness of the infant.

The farinaceous matter of corn, the object of veneration among so many nations, ancient and modern, is diffused in the seeds and deposited in the roots of vegetables; milk, which serves as an ailment, appears to us exclusively the product of animal organization.

Such are the impressions we have received in our earliest infancy; such is also the source of that astonishment created by the aspect of the tree described.

It is not here the solemn shades of forests, the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal snow, that excite our emotion.

A few drops of vegetable juice recall to our minds all the powerfulness and fecundity of nature.

On the barren flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves.

Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone.

For several months of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage.

Its branches appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced, there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk.

It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant.

The negroes and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at its surface.

Some drain their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their children.

The vegetable milk of this tree (called by the natives palo de vaca) is of agreeable taste and balsamic odour.

Thus the tribes of the mountains of Venezuela, excited by want, and deriving almost all their subsistence from the vegetable kingdom, have discovered and used for ages, the milk and cheese furnished by a tree, while we in Europe, accustomed to depend more on the animal kingdom, have but recently discovered the principle of cheese in almonds.

But in a country so richly endowed by nature, it requires very powerful motives to rouse and develope man.--Humboldt's Travels.