

CHAP, in S Y L V A 35 



in Sicily is a place call'd by them gli Castayne^ from 

 three chesnut-trees there standing, where in the cavity 

 of one yet remaining, a considerable flock of sheep is 

 commonly folded : Kircher's words are these, as seen 

 by himself, et quod for san 7rapaSoov videri possit, ostendit 

 mihi viae dux^ unius castaneae corticem tantae amplitudi- 

 nis^ ut intra earn integer pecorum grex a pastoribus^ tan- 

 quam in caula commodissima, noctu includeretur. China 

 Illust. p. 185. But this, as I remember, was lately 

 ruin'd by the direful conflagration about Catanea : 

 And what may we conceive of those trees in the 

 Indies, one of whose nuts hardly one man is able to 

 carry ; and which are so vast, as they depend not like 

 other fruit, by a stalk from the boughs, but are pro- 

 duc'd out of the very body and stem of the tree, and 

 are sufficient to feed twenty persons at a meal ? There 

 were trees found in Brazile, that sixteen men could 

 hardly fathom about, and the Jesuits caused one of 

 these to be fell'd, for being superstitiously worship'd 

 by the savages, which was 120 foot in circumference. 

 The Mexican Emperor is said to have had a tree in 

 his garden, under whose shade a thousand men might 

 sit at a competent distance. 



We read of a certain fig in the Charibee Islands, 

 which emits such large buttresses, that great planks 

 for tables and flooring are cleft out of them, without 

 the least prejudice to the tree ; and that one of these 

 does easily shelter 200 men under them : And in 

 NieuhofFs Voyage to the East-Indies, of the kynti^ a 

 kind of oak, which yield planks of 4 foot breadth, and 

 40 in length : Strabo, I remember, Geog. 1. 15. talks 

 of fifty horsemen under a tree in India ; his words are 



and of another that shaded five stadia at once ; and 



