32 SYLVA BOOK m 



and such it seems there are some, yet growing on 

 Mount Libanus, (tho' so very few in number). Our 

 late traveller l Mr. Maundrill, affirms himself to have 

 measured one of 1 2 yards 6 inches in girt, sound, and 

 no less than thirty yards from the ground, divided 

 into five limbs, each of which was equal to a great 

 tree : Of the plane in Athens, whose roots extended 

 36 cubits farther than the boughs, which were yet 

 exceedingly large ; and such another was that most 

 famous tree at Veliternus, whose arms stretch'd out 

 80 foot from the stem : But these were solid. Now 

 if we will calculate from the hollow, besides those 

 mentioned by Pliny, in the Hercynian forest ; the 

 Germans had castles in oaks, and (as now the Indians) 

 had of old some punti, or canoos of excavated oak, 

 which would well contain thirty, some forty persons: 

 Such were the ancient poi/ogvXa, in use yet about 

 Cephalonia, as Sir George Wheeler observ'd ; and 

 such the "ASpua nXota us'd by those of Cyprus : But 

 what were these to a canoo in Congo, which was 

 made to hold 200 men ? And the Lician platanus 

 recorded by the naturalist, and remaining long after 

 his days, had a room in it of eighty one feet in 

 compass, adorn'd with fountains, stately seats, and 

 tables of stone ; for it seems it was so glorious a 

 tree both in body and head, that Licinius Mutianus 

 (three times consul, and governour of that province) 

 us'd to feast his whole retinue in it, chusing rather to 

 lodge in it, than in his golden-roofed palace ; it was 

 in compass 80 foot, and grew in Asia. And of later 

 date, that vast cerrus in which an eremit built his 

 cell and chappel, so celebrated by the noble Fracast- 

 orius in his poem Malteide. cant. 8. stro. 30. 



1 Maundrill's Journey to Jerusalem, p. 140. 



