46 NUTRITIVE PLANTS". 



About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade 

 High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between. 

 There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, 

 Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 

 At loop-holes cut through thickest shade : those leaves 

 They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe, 

 And, with what skill they had, together sow M, 

 To gird their waist. 

 Indeed the banian tree, or Indian fig, is perhaps the most beauti- 

 ful of nature's productions in that genial climate, where she sports 

 with so much profusion and variety. Some of these trees are of 

 amazing size and great extent, as they are continually increasing, 

 and, contrary to most other things in animal and vegetable life, seem 

 to be exempted from decay. Every branch from the main body 

 throws out its own roots ; at first, in small tender fibres, several 

 yards from the ground : these continually grow thicker until they 

 reach the surface; and there striking in, they increase to large 

 trunks, and become parent trees, shooting out new branches from 

 the top : these in time suspend their roots, which, swelling into 

 trunks, produce other branches; thus continuing in a state of pro- 

 gression as long as the earth, the first parent of them all, contributes 

 her sustenance. The Hindoos are peculiarly fond of the banian- 

 tree ; they look upon it as an emblem of the Deity, from its long 

 duration, its out-stretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence ; 

 they almost pay it divine honours, and 



" Find a fane in every sacred grove." 



Near these trees the most esteemed pagodas are generally erected ; 

 under their shade the Brahmins spend their lives in religious solitude ; 

 iitid the natives of all casts and tribes are fond of recreating in the 

 cool recesses, beautiful walks, and lovely vistas of this umbrageous 

 canopy, impervious to the hottest beams of a tropical sun'. 



A remarkable large tree of this kind grows on an island in the 

 river Nerbedda, ten miles from the city of Baroche, in the province 

 of Guzerat, a flourishing settlement lately in possession of the East 

 India company, but ceded by the government of Bengal, at the 

 treaty of peace concluded with the Mahrattas in 1783, to Mahdajee 

 Sciudia, a Mahratta chief. It is distinsruished b* the name of Cub- 



