AN EXCURSION. 



wer eager to see the fat famed Banyan tree of which we 

 had heard so much and so often, we proceeded 

 towards it without further loss of time, and in a short 

 While were seated Under the wide spreading branches 

 of the glorious Banyan tree (flcus Bengdknsis^ LinnJ, 

 which looks more like a forest than a single tree. This 

 forest4ike appearance is caused by the aerial roots grow- 

 ing out of the branches and descending vertically to the 

 ground to form supports for the horizontally spreading 

 branches. This habit of sending down aerial roots is com- 

 mon in most of the trees belonging to the genus J?icus t 

 but it has attained its greatest development in the banyan 

 which sends down numberless branches to form 



" An ample shade* 



Cloistered with columned drooping stetris and roofed 



With vaults of glittering green." 



From the label fixed to the main trunk of the tree 

 we gathered that it was about 51 feet in girth ; that 

 the aerial roots numbered 378, and that new roots 

 were constantly forming* With regard to the origin 

 of this tree there is a tradition current in the neigh- 

 bouring villages to the effect that it began life as a 

 parasite upon a date palm which it ultimately smothered. 

 According to the same tradition a kind of sanctity 

 is attached to the spot owing to the fact that a 

 holy man (Fakir) used daily to sit under the date palm 

 upon which the young banyan throve. Banyans, more 

 often than not, begin life in this way. As a practical 

 demonstration of the fact, there was a wild date with a 



