WILD PIG TREES. 81 



of fruit in eyery stage of development, the ripened figs being of 

 the size of the end of one's little finger, but as perfect in their 

 parts as the larger figs of commerce. Little lizards, like embryo 

 monkeys, were here and there seen through the green foliage, 

 while below, sheep were browsing, and eating the fallen fruit, 

 docile and happy, growing for the shearer their wool, and 

 fattening their carcasses for the butcher. These figs are to the 

 taste sweet and pleasant, and, though so small, their immense 

 number make them valuable. Children eat them, and upon them 

 hogs are fattened. Under this tree, the top of the rocky floor 

 was covered with a net work of its roots, one of which pene- 

 trated the cellar of Mr. Burnside, some three hundred feet distant. 



We saw two of the same species of banyan tree tliat had ob- 

 tained a large growth from seed blown by the wind or depos- 

 ited by birds on top of a stone wall. This wall was composed of 

 irregular fragments, and was two and a-half feet wide at the top 

 and about four feet high. The seed there germinated, pushed 

 out their little fibrous roots, which crept down each side of the 

 stone wall, and fastened to and extended among the rocks in the 

 fields which the wall in part inclosed. These rootlets enlarged 

 with the growth of the trees, while from the top of the wall 

 stems pushed up into the air. One of the trees had five stems 

 whose diameters varied from six to twelve inches. On the top 

 of a stone wall within the grounds of the Victoria Hotel, there 

 is the stump of a tree a foot in diameter, which unquestionably 

 grew there, as its roots are still seen where they entered and 

 pushed out from among the stones of the wall. Having had 

 some experience in setting out, manuring, watching and water- 

 ing trees in Connecticut, the pluck, enterprise, persistence and 

 independence of these wild Bahama trees challenged our warm- 

 est admiration. 



Mr. Burnside also called our attention to a banyan tree upon 



