liquid over the cordage, that at once began to shrink, and raised the monstrous mass, and settled it upon its base.
The man who saved the obelisk was Bresca, a sea captain of a fishing smack at San Remo. Sixtus V. inquired after him, and promised him, what cost himself nothing, as a reward, that ever thenceforth his family and his native village should have the privilege of furnishing the palms for S. Peter's on Palm Sunday.
In order to bleach the leaves for this purpose they are tied up in a way very similar to that employed by market gardeners to obtain white centres to lettuces. It cannot be said that the leaves are made more beautiful by the process; on the contrary, they lose what little beauty they had. The branches are bound up so as to form a vertical roll, in the centre of which are the young leaves, that have to struggle up, shut off from light and air, with the result that sickly, ugly strips are produced, which are sent throughout the Catholic world for use on the Sunday before Easter. Ten thousand times preferable are our pretty "palms," the catkin-bearing willow twigs.
The date palm is not indigenous. It was probably introduced by the Crusaders. In an illustration to a MS. of the Geography of Strabo, presented by Guarini to King Rene, the king is shown seated with a full-grown palm tree in the background. Indeed, in the tympanum of the north doorway of S. Syro, at San Remo, is a representation of a male and a female palm tree with an Agnus Dei between them.
The date palm is multiplied by seed and by suckers. This last mode of propagation is the most advantageous, as all the plants so produced are females and fruit
