284: THE ORIENTAL PLANE. 



interest of honour, nor the necessary motion of his por- 

 tentous army, could persuade him from it. He styled it 

 his mistress, his minion, his goddess; and when he was 

 forced to part from it, he caused the figure of it to be 

 stamped on a medal of gold, which he continually wore 

 about him. Wherever they built their sumptuous and 

 magnificent colleges for the exercise of the youth in 

 gymnastics, and where the graver philosophers also met to 

 converse together and improve their studies, they planted 

 walks of Platans, to refresh and shade them. The great 

 Roman orators and statesmen, Cicero and Hortensius, 

 would exchange now and then a turn at the bar, that they 

 might have the pleasure to step to their villas and refresh 

 their Platans, which they would often do with wine 

 instead of water. And so prized was the very shade of 

 this tree, that when afterwards they transplanted it into 

 France, they exacted a solarium, by way of tribute, on 

 any of the natives who should presume to put his head 

 under it." 



This veneration for the Plane still lingers in the East. 

 The great Plane of the island Stanchio (anciently Cos), in 

 the Archipelago, is remarkable for its size and the care 

 with which the natives have attempted to preserve it. It 

 has stood from time immemorial in the chief town of the 

 island ; and while it i\ the boast of the inhabitants, it is 

 also, and with justice, the wonder of strangers. Earl 

 Sandwich saw it in the year 1789, and calls it a Sycamore : 

 "Among the curiosities of this city is a Sycamore -tree, 

 which is, without doubt, the largest in the known world. 

 It extends its branches, which are supported by many 

 ancient pillars of porphyry, very antique, and other precious 

 marble, in the exact form of a circle ; from the outward 

 verge of which to the trunk I measured forty-five large 

 paces. Beneath the shade of this Sycamore is a very 

 beautiful fountain, round which the Turks have erected 

 several chiosks, or summer-houses, to which they retire in 

 the heat of the summer, and regale themselves with their 



