DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70266#0419
tjie Fountain Iree.
3.73
trees resembling the plant ferula, from which water may
be procured by pressure. What comes from the black kind
is bitter, but that which the white yields is sweet and po-
table.”
Trees yielding water are not peculiar to the island of
Hierro, for travellers inform us of one of the same kind oh
the island of St. Thomas, in the bight or gulph of Guiney.
In Cockburn’s Voyages, we find the following account of a
dropping-tree, near the mountains of Vera Paz, in Ame-
rica. (( On the morning of the fourth day we came out on a
large plain, where were great numbers of fine deer, and in
the middle stood a tree of unusual size, spreading its
branches over a vast compass of ground. Curiosity led us
up to it; we had perceived, at some distance off, the ground
about it to be wet, at which we began to be somewhat sur-
prized, as wrell knowing there had no rain fallen for near six
months past, according to the certain course of the season in
that latitude ; that it was impossible to be occasioned by the
fall of dew on the tree, we were convinced, by the sun’s
having power to exhale away all moisture of that nature, a
few7 minutes after its rising. At last, to our great amaze-
ment, as wrnll as joy, we saw the water dropping, or as it
were distilling, fast from the end of every leaf of this won-
derful (nor had it been amiss if I had said miraculous) tree;
at least it was so with respect to us, who had been labouring
four days, through extreme heat, without receiving the
least moisture, and were now almost expiring for the want
of it.
We could not help looking on this as liquqr sent from
Heaven to comfort us under great extremity. We catched
what we could of it in our hands, and drank very plentifully
of it, and liked it so wrell, that we could hardly prevail
with ourselves to give over. A matter of this nature could
not but excite us to make the strictest observations con-
cerning it, and accordingly we staid under the tree near
3.73
trees resembling the plant ferula, from which water may
be procured by pressure. What comes from the black kind
is bitter, but that which the white yields is sweet and po-
table.”
Trees yielding water are not peculiar to the island of
Hierro, for travellers inform us of one of the same kind oh
the island of St. Thomas, in the bight or gulph of Guiney.
In Cockburn’s Voyages, we find the following account of a
dropping-tree, near the mountains of Vera Paz, in Ame-
rica. (( On the morning of the fourth day we came out on a
large plain, where were great numbers of fine deer, and in
the middle stood a tree of unusual size, spreading its
branches over a vast compass of ground. Curiosity led us
up to it; we had perceived, at some distance off, the ground
about it to be wet, at which we began to be somewhat sur-
prized, as wrell knowing there had no rain fallen for near six
months past, according to the certain course of the season in
that latitude ; that it was impossible to be occasioned by the
fall of dew on the tree, we were convinced, by the sun’s
having power to exhale away all moisture of that nature, a
few7 minutes after its rising. At last, to our great amaze-
ment, as wrnll as joy, we saw the water dropping, or as it
were distilling, fast from the end of every leaf of this won-
derful (nor had it been amiss if I had said miraculous) tree;
at least it was so with respect to us, who had been labouring
four days, through extreme heat, without receiving the
least moisture, and were now almost expiring for the want
of it.
We could not help looking on this as liquqr sent from
Heaven to comfort us under great extremity. We catched
what we could of it in our hands, and drank very plentifully
of it, and liked it so wrell, that we could hardly prevail
with ourselves to give over. A matter of this nature could
not but excite us to make the strictest observations con-
cerning it, and accordingly we staid under the tree near