ISLAND OF CEYLON. 211 



The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 About the mother j a pillar'd fliade. 

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

 There oft the Indian herdlman, (hunning heat, 

 Shelters in cool, and tends his pafturing herds 

 At loop-holes cut through thickeft ihade. 



Authors who have treated, or given figures of this magni- 

 ficent tree, are Rbeede, in his Hortus MalabaricuSy iii. p. 85, tab. 

 Ixiii.; Rtimpbius, in vol. iii. p. 127. tab. Ixxxiv. ; Boullaye de 

 GouZi at p. 194. ; Lijtfcbotan, in his curious travels, at p. 68, and 

 Catejby in his Hiftory of Carolina., iii. p. 18, and tab. xviii.? 

 Mr. Hodge'?, Travels, tab. p. 27. Finally, I may mention the 

 figures in Clufius's Exotics, p. 2, and that in Gerardy p. 15 12,, 

 (copied from the former) but rauft obferve that both feem m.ore 

 regular than nature will admit. 



That magnificent bird the peacock fwarms in Ceylon : Its Peacock. 

 legs are much Jonger, and its tail of far greater length in its 

 native ftate, than they are with us. This moft elegant and fu- 

 perb of the feathered creation, is confined (in tlie ftate of 

 nature) to India, and adds higlily to the beauty of the rich 

 forefts of that vafl: country, and fome of its iflands. It inhabits 

 moft parts of the continent, even as high as Lat. 31° 14' N. fup- 

 pofing it to be yet found on the Hydraotes, the modern Rauwee. 

 It was imported from India into Greece, as M.lian fiiys, by the 

 barbarians, by which he mufi; mean the natives of the country 

 of that bird. A male and female were valued at Athens at a 



E e 2 thoufand 



