CHAP, i.] WEST INDIES. 17 



cave, has been known to produce a boat capable of 

 containing one hundred persons? or the still greater 

 fig, the sovereign of the vegetable creation, itself a 

 forest? |i 



The majestic scenery of these gigantic groves was 

 at the same time enlivened by the singular forms t)f 

 some, and the surprising beauty of others of the infe- 

 rior animals which possessed and peopled them. Al- 

 though these will be more fully described in the se- 

 quel, a few observations which at present occur to 

 me, will, I hope, be forgiven. If it be true, as it 

 hath been asserted, that in most of the regions of the 

 torrid zone the heat of the sun is, as it were, reflect- 

 ed in the untameable fierceness of their wild beasts, 

 and in the exalted rage and venom of the numerous 

 serpents with which they are infest ed 3 the Sovereign 



|| This monarch of the woods* whose empire extends over Asia and 

 Africa, as well as the tropical parts of America, is described by our di- 

 vine poet with great exactness : 



The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd, 

 But such as at this day to Indians known 

 In Malabar and Decan, spreads her arms, 

 Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 

 The bearded twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 Above the mother tree, a pillared shade, 

 High owe r- arch V, and echoing ivalks between! 



Paradise Lost, Book IX. 



Jt is called in the East Indies the banyan-tree. Mr. Marsden gires the 

 following account of the dimensions of one near Manjee, twenty miles 

 west of Patna in Bengal : Diameter, 363 to 375 feet; circumference of 

 the shadow at noon, 1116 feet; circumference of the several stems, in 

 number fifty or sixty, gzi feet. Hist. Sumatra, p. 131. 



Vol. I. c 



