DRAGON -TREE— SYCAMORE— BANYAN. 529 



riffe, still flourishes the venerable dragon-tree, which was already reverenced for its 

 age by the extirpated nation of the Guanches, the aboriginal inhabitants of the island, 

 and which the adventurous Bethencourts, the conquerors of the Canaries, found hardly 

 less colossal and cavernous in 1402 than Humboldt, who visited it in 1799. Above 

 the roots, the illustrious traveler measured a circumference of forty-five feet ; and ac- 

 cording to Sir George Staunton, the trunk has still a diameter of four yards, at an 

 elevation of ten feet above the ground. The whole bight of the tree is not much 

 above sixty-five feet. The trunk divides into numerous upright branches, terminating 

 in tufts of evergreen leaves, resembling those of the pine-apple. 



Next to the baobab and the dracasna, the Sycamore {Ficus sycomorus) holds a con- 

 spicuous rank among the giant trees of Africa. It attains a hight of only forty or 

 fifty feet, but in the course of many centuries its trunk swells to a colossal size, and 

 its vast crown covers a large space of ground with an impenetrable shade. Its leaves 

 are about four inches long and as many broad, and its figs have an excellent flavor. 

 In Egypt it is almost the only grove-forming tree ; and most of the mummy coffins 

 are made of its incorruptible wood. 



No baobab rears its monstrous trunk on the banks of the Ganges ; no drao-on-tree 

 of patriarchal age here reminds the wanderer of centuries long past ; but the beautiful 

 and stately Banyan {Ficus indica) gives him but little reason to regret their absence. 

 Each tree is in itself a grove, and some of them are of an astonishing size, as they are 

 continually increasing, and, contrary to most other animal and vegetable productions, 

 seem to be exempted from decay ; for every branch from the main body throws out its 

 own roots, at first in small tender fibers, several yards from the ground, which contin- 

 ually grow thicker, until, by a gradual descent, they reach its surface, where, striking 

 in, they increase to a large trunk and become a parent-tree, throwing out new branches 

 from the top. These in time suspend their roots, and, receiving nourishment from 

 the earth, swell into trunks and send forth other branches, thus continuing in a state 

 of progression so long as the first parent of them all supplies her sustenance. The 

 Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree ; they consider its long duration, its outstretch- 

 ing arms and overshadowing beneficence, as emblems of the Deity ; they plant it near 

 their temples ; and in those villages where there is no structure for public worship 

 they place an image under a banyan, and there perform a morning and evening sacrifice. 



Many of these beautiful trees have acquired an historic celebrity ; and the famous 

 " Cubbeer-burr," on the banks of the Nerbuddah, thus called by the Hindoos in mem- 

 ory of a favorite saint, is supposed to be the same as that described by Nearchus, the 

 admiral of Alexander the Great, as being able to shelter an army under its fjir-spread- 

 mg shade. High floods have at various times swept away a considerable part of this 

 extraordinary tree, but what still remains is near 2,000 feet in circumference, meas- 

 ured round the principal stems; the overhanging branches not yet struck down cover 

 a much larger space ; and under it grow a number of custard-apple and other fruit 

 trees. The large trunks of this single colossus amount to a greater number than the 

 days of the year, and the smaller ones exceed 3,000, each constantly sending forth 

 branches and hanging roots, to form other trunks and become the parents of a future 

 progeny. In the march of an army it has been known to shelter 7,000 men. Such 

 IS the banyan — more wonderful, and infinitely more beautiful and majestic, than all 

 the temples and palaces which the pride of the Moguls has ever reared ! 

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