242 pfant Isore, IseQer^f, anil "btji-ic/*. 



following description of this sacred tree given by Pietro Delia Valle 

 at the commencement of the seventeenth century : — " On one side 

 of the town, on a large open space, one sees towering a magnificent 

 tree, similar to those which I had noticed near Hormuz, and which 

 were called Ltd, but here were known as Ber. The peasants of 

 this country have a profound veneration for this tree, both on 

 account of its grandeur and its antiquity : they make pilgrimages 

 to it, and honour it with their superstitious ceremonies, believing 

 that the goddess Parvati, the wife of Mahadeva, to whom it is dedi- 

 cated, has it under her protection. In the trunk of this tree, at a 

 little distance from the ground, they have roughly carved what is 

 supposed to be the head of an idol, but which no one can recognise 

 as bearing any semblance to a human being ; however, like the 

 Romans, they paint the face of the idol red, and adorn it with 

 flowers, and with leaves of a tree which they call here Pan, but in 

 other parts of India Betel. These flowers and leaves ought to be 

 always fresh, and so they are often changed. The pilgrims who 

 come to visit the tree receive as a pious souvenir the dried leaves 

 which have been replaced by fresh ones. The idol has eyes of 

 gold and silver, and is decorated with jewellery offered by pious 

 persons who have attributed to it the miraculous cure of oph- 

 thalmic complaints they have suffered from They 



take the greatest care of the tree, of every branch, nay, of every 

 leaf, and will not permit either man or beast to damage or profane 

 it. Other Banyan or Pagod trees have obtained great eminence. 

 One near Mangee, near Patna, spread over a diameter of three 

 hundred and seventy feet, and it required nine hundred and 

 twenty feet to surround the fifty or sixty stems by which the tree 

 was supported. Another covered an area of one thousand seven 

 hundred square yards ; and many of almost equal dimensions are 



found in different parts of India and Cochin-China." In the 



Atharvaveda mention is made of an all-powerful amulet, which 

 is a reduction, on a small scale, of a Banyan-tree, possessing a 

 thousand stems, to each of which is attributed a special magical 

 property. 



BAOBAB. — The leviathan Baobab {Adansonia) is an object 

 of reverential worship to the negroes of Senegal, where it is 

 asserted that some of these trees exist which are five thousand 

 years old. It is reputed to be the largest tree in the world, and 

 may readily be taken at a distance for a grove : its trunk is often 

 one hundred feet in circumference ; but its height is not so won- 

 derful as its enormous lateral bulk. The central branch rises 

 perpendicularly, the others spread out in all direcftions, and attain 

 a length of sixty feet, touching the ground at their extremities, 

 and equalling in bulk the noblest trees. The wood is spongy and 

 soon decays, leaving the trunks hollow. In these hollow trunks 

 the negroes suspend the dead bodies of those who are refused the 

 honour of burial; and in this position the bodies are preserved 



