Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/218

But so placed, as it is here, the eye must be strangely incurious and unappreciative that finds any lack of variety in the landscape wherein the palm plays so continual a part. Those who charge it with sameness are deceived by its mere uniformity of general outline. Architecturally speaking, it must be admitted that this famous tree is simplicity itself. The irreverent have been known to compare it to a mop which has earned its right to retirement by long and wearing services; and, indeed, the broad resemblance between stem and handle, drooping fronds and well-worn mop-head, could hardly escape the eye of a child. Comparing it, for instance, with the countless shapes assumed by the English tree which stands first for beauty of line—the beech—one might have thought it beyond the power even of so inventive an artist as Nature to get much variety out of the endless repetition of this simple figure. Nature, however, has signally triumphed over these difficulties of her own creation. With-