quantity is so trifling, that, though the natives save some of it, yet they make little or no account of any but what distils from the Til; which, together with the water of some fountains, and what is saved in the winter season, is sufficient to {181} serve them and their flocks. This tree yields most water in those years when the Levant, or easterly winds, have prevailed for a continuance; for by these winds only, the clouds or mists are drawn hither from the sea. A person lives on the spot near which this tree grows, who is appointed by the Council to take care of it and its water, and is allowed a house to live in, with a certain salary. He every day distributes to each family of the district, seven pots or vessels full of water, besides what he gives to the principal people of the island." "Whether the tree which yields water at this present time be the same as that mentioned in the above description, I cannot pretend to determine, but it is probable there has been a succession of them; for Pliny, describing the Fortunate Islands, says, "In the mountains of Ombrion, are 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 palatable."--GLAS's _History of the Canary Islands_. Cordeyro (_Historia Insulana_, lib. ii. c. 5.) says, that this tree resembles what in other places is called the _Til_, (_Tilia_,) the Linden Tree; and he proceeds, from these three letters, to make it an emblem of the Trinity. The water, he says, was called the _Agua Santa_, and the tree {182} itself the _Santa Arvore_,--appellations not ill bestowed. According to his account the water was delivered out in stated portions. There is an account of a similar tree in Cockburne's Travels; but this I believe to be a work of fiction. Bernal Diaz, however, mentions one as growing at Naco, in Honduras, "_Que en mitad de la siesta, por recio sol que hiziesse, parecia que la sombra del arbol refrescava el corazon, caia del uno como rozio muy delgado que confortava las cabezas._"--206. There may be some exaggeration in the accounts of the Fierro Tree, but that the story has some foundation I have no doubt. The islanders of St. Thomas say, that they have a sort of trees whose leaves continually are distilling water. (_Barbot. in Churckle_, 405.) It is certain that a dew falls in hot weather from the lime,--a fact of which any person may easily convince himself. The same property has been observed in other English trees, as appears by the following extract from the Monthly Magazine: