feet above the sea; but in that elevated region a trunk of from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference is no rarity, and such is the height to which the tree shoots up, that with this thickness of trunk, it gives the impression of slimness. It was as famous in its way as the cedars of Lebanon, and ancient writers tell us that Alexander the Great used it to build his fleet. But the Himâlaya has, over the Lebanon, the advantage of being far out of the way of armies and conquests, and therefore still wears its royal forest crown unimpaired, while the Lebanon stands almost denuded, and only an occasional solitary tree tells of its former glory.

13. But, valuable and majestic as these two forest kings are, they are far eclipsed, both in beauty and dimensions, by a native tree, which may be considered the most characteristic of Indian vegetation. It belongs to the family of fig-trees, to which the soil and climate of India are so congenial that it is represented, in different parts of the continent, by no less than a hundred and five varieties. This particular variety, specially known as "Indian fig-tree" (Ficus Indica), surely may claim to be admired as the paragon not only of its own species, but of all vegetation without exception. It takes so influential and prominent a place in the life, both physical and moral, of India, and is moreover such a marvel of nature, that a description of it is not out of place even in a necessarily brief sketch, and we may as well borrow that given by Lassen in his monumental work':

1 Chr. Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, 2d ed., vol. i., pp. 301 ff.

"The Ficus Indica is probably the most astounding piece of vegetation on the face of our earth. From one single root it produces a vast green temple of many halls, with cool, shady bowers impervious to the light, and seems created expressly and exclusively for the purpose of supplying shelterless primeval humanity with ready-made dwellings. For neither is its wood of much use, nor are its fruits eatable for man, and if it inspires the Hindus and their neighbors with a profound veneration, it is owing to the surpassing marvel of its well-nigh preternatural growth, its indestructible duration and everlasting self-renewal; to which traits the mysterious gloom of its galleries and avenues adds not a little, yielding a most grateful retreat from the torrid summer heat. The trunk of the tree, at a moderate height from the ground, branches out into several stout limbs which stretch from it horizontally; from these, slender shoots -the so-called " air-roots"-grow downwards until they reach the ground, where they take root, whereupon they increase in thickness and become strong supports for the mother-limb. The central trunk repeats the branching out process at a greater height, and the second circle of limbs in its turn sends down a number of air-roots which form an outer circle of props or pillars. As the central trunk increases in height, it goes on producing tier upon tier of horizontal limbs, and these add row after row to the outer circle of pillars, not indeed with perfect regularity, but so as to form a grove of leafy halls and verdant galleries multiplying ad infinitum. For this evolution is carried on on a gigantic scale. The highest tier of horizontal limbs is said to grow sometimes at an elevation of two hundred feet from the ground, and the whole structure is crowned with the dome of verdure in which the central trunk finally culminates. The leaves, which grow very close together, are five inches long by three and a half broad, and their fine green color pleasantly contrasts with the small red figs, which, however, are not eaten by men."

Such is the tree, more generally known under its popular name of banyan than under the scientific one of Ficus Indica,' the tree which, together

1 This name is supposed to come from the fact that the tree was carried westward by Hindu tradesmen called banyans. This accounts for its being found in places along the Persian Gulf, in parts

with the Ganges and the Himâlaya, completes the picture of India as evoked in a few apt strokes the poet's fancy (see p. 1). To the elephants that wander majestically among its shady walks, and the apes that laugh and gambol in its airy galleries, we must add the noisy parrots and other birds of no less flaming plumage, but softer voice, and to these numerous and playful denizens the berries or small figs disdained by men yield grateful and sufficient food. It is needless to mention that these trees grow singly, not in forests-since one evidently is in itself if not a forest, at least a grove of considerable size. How large, indeed, can scarcely be realized without the help of a few figures. Fortunately many have been accurately measured, and several have attained historical celebrity. Thus the central trunk of one handsome banyan-tree near Madras is known to have been twenty-eight feet in diameter, and to have been surrounded by a first circle of twenty-seven secondary trunks, each about eleven feet in diameter, and from thirty to fifty feet in height, and after that by almost innumerable others, of decreasing stoutness. The largest known banyan tree had over thirteen hundred large trunks, and three thousand smaller ones. Armies of six or seven thousand men have frequently been encamped in its bowers, and it was seen afar as a solitary green hillock, until a violent hurricane half destroyed it in 1783. Besides which, being situated on an island in

of Arabia (Yemen), and even of Africa, although its native land is emphatically the Indian Continent, where it thrives in all provinces, except the table-land of Dekhan.

the Nerbudda, the river has from time to time. carried away large slices of its domain, till it is now

FORESTS).

reduced to a skeleton of its former glory. What may be its age, no one can tell. Five hundred years are historically recorded. But these trees may get