Since the beginning of the world this plant has ranked among the first in the Flora of Asia. The Christians of the orient look upon it as the tree of Paradise which bore the forbidden fruit, and they think its leaves furnished the first covering to our original parents. According to other historians, the Adam's fig was the plant, which the messengers brought from the promised land to Moses, who had sent them out to reconnoitre. "It is under the shade of the _musa sapientium_, that," as recorded by Pliny, "the learned Indians seated themselves to meditate over the vicissitudes of life, and to talk over different philosophic subjects, and the fruit of this tree was their only food." The Oriental Christians, up to the present date, regard the banana almost with reverence; their active fancy beholds in its center, if a cut is made transverse, the image of the cross, and they consider it a crime to use a knife in cutting the fruit. In the holy language of the Hindoo, the Sanscrit, the Adam's fig is called "modsha," whence doubtless, the word "musa" is derived. It is generally believed that the plant came from India to Egypt in the seventh century; it still forms a most important article of commerce in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria. In the year 1516, the banana was brought to the West Indian Islands by a monk, since which time it has rapidly spread over the tropics of America, and is found to the twenty-fifth degree north and south of the equator. It is equally indispensable and is appreciated by the immigrant and by the native as a beautifier of the landscape; affording shelter from the sun and rain, and giving bread to the children; for if every other crop should fail, the hungry native looks up to the banana tree, like a merchant to his well-filled storehouse. * * * * * PUTTING UP STOVES. BY MARK TWAIN. We do not remember the exact date of the invention of stoves, but it was some years ago. Since then mankind have been tormented once a year, by the difficulties that beset the task of putting them up, and getting the pipes fixed. With all our Yankee ingenuity no American has ever invented any method by which the labor of putting up stoves can be lessened. The job is as severe and vexatious as humanity can possibly endure, and gets more so every year. Men always put their stoves up on a rainy day. Why, we know not; but we never heard of any exception to this rule. The first step to be taken is to put on a very old and ragged coat, under the impression that when he gets his mouth full of plaster it will keep the shirt bosom clean. Next, the operator gets his hand inside the place where the pipe ought to go, and blacks his fingers, and then he carefully makes a black mark down the side of his nose. It is impossible to make any headway, in doing this work, until this mark is made down the side of the nose. Having got his face properly marked, the victim is ready to begin the ceremony.