Chap. 11.] THE INDIAN TIG. 109 



CHAP. 9. WHEN EBONY WAS EIEST SEEN AT EOME. THE VARIOUS 



KINDS OE EBONT. 



Pompeius Magnus displayed ebony on the occasion of his 

 triumph over Mithridates. Fabianus declares, that this wood 

 will give out no flame ; it burns, however, with a very agree- 

 able smell. There are two kinds 36 of ebony ; the rarest kind 

 is the best, and is produced from a tree that is singularly free 

 from knots. The wood is black and shining, and pleasing to 

 the eye, without any adventitious aid from art. The other 

 kind of ebony is the produce of a shrub which resemblesthe 

 cytisus, and is to be found scattered over the whole of India. 



CHAP. 10. (5.) — THE INDIAN THORN. 



There is in India, also, a kind of thorn 37 very similar to 

 ebony, though it may be distinguished from it, by the aid of 

 a lantern even ; for, on the application of flame, it will in- 

 stantly run across the tree. We will now proceed to describe 

 those trees which were the admiration of Alexander the Great 

 in his victorious career, when that part of the world was first 

 revealed by his arms. 



CHAP. 1 1 . THE INDIAN EIG. 



The Indian fig 38 bears but a small fruit. Always growing 

 spontaneously, it spreads far and wide with its vast branches, 

 the ends of which bend downwards into the ground to such a 

 degree, that they take fresh root in the course of a year, and 

 thus form a new plantation around the parent stock, traced in 

 a circular form, just as though it had been the work of the 

 ornamental gardener. Within the bowers thus formed, the 

 shepherds take up their abode in the summer, the space occu- 

 pied by them being, at once, overshadowed and protected by 



se Fee remarks, that the words of Pliny do not afford us any means of 

 judging precisely what tree it was that he understood by the name of ebony. 

 He borrows his account mainly from Theophrastus. 



37 It is not known to what tree he alludes. 



s 8 This account of the Ficus Indica, or religiosa, known to us as toe 

 banian-tree, is borrowed entirely from Theophrastus. Fee remarks, how- 

 ever, that he is wrong in some of his statements, for that the leaves are not 

 jjrescent-shaped, but oblong and pointed, and that the fruit has not a plea- 

 sant flavour, and is only eaten by the birds. 



