Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/241

Rh “Were cherries father? May we not even call cherries Swiss? I always thought they grew nowhere else.”

“I am afraid we cannot even claim cherries as our own, not even the name of them; they are called cherries from Cerasus, a State of Pontus, in Asia, whence they were brought to Europe by Lucullus, a Roman general, about seventy years before Christ. Hazel nuts also came from Pontus; walnuts, again, came originally from Persia. As for grapes, they are of the greatest antiquity. We hear, if you remember, of Noah cultivating vines, and they have been brought from one place to another until they now are to be found in most parts of the civilized world.”

“Do you think all these trees will grow?” asked Fritz, as we crossed Jackal River and entered our plantation at Tentholm; “here are lemons, pomegranates, pistachio nuts, and mulberries.”

“I have little doubt of it,” I replied, “we are evidently within the tropics, where such trees as these are sure to flourish. These pines, now, come from France, Spain, and Italy; the olives from Armenia and Palestine; the figs originally from the island of Chios; the peaches and apricots from Persia; plums from Damascus in Syria, and the pears of all sorts from Greece. However, if our countries have not been blessed in the same way with fruit, we have been given wisdom and skill, which has enabled us to import and cultivate the trees of other lands.”

We thus talked and worked until every tree that required the treatment was provided with a stout bamboo prop, and then, with appetites which a gourmand might well have envied, we returned to Falconhurst. I think the good mother was almost alarmed at the way we fell upon the corned beef and palm-cabbage she set before us, but at length these good things produced the desired effect, and one after another declared himself satisfied. As we sat reclining after our labour and digesting our dinner, we discussed the various projects we had in contemplation. “I wish,” said my wife, “that you would invent some other plan for climbing to the