226 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



This mango tree was the largest I ever beheld. In 

 the adjacent groves, however, there were many that 

 in girth and spread of branches were but little inferior. 

 One I especially remember. It grew in a field about 

 a mile distant ; its trunk, well above the projections of 

 the roots, measured some inches over eighteen feet in 

 circumference ; and it towered up without curve or 

 bend, almost as straight as a pine, to the height of near 

 forty feet, I should say, before it threw out a single 

 branch. 



Of all the Indian trees the mango as it here appears 

 is beyond compare the most beautiful. Its form is so 

 graceful, its bark so smooth and clean, and the green of 

 its foliage so deep and rich. In the early spring the 

 beauty of the foliage is enhanced by its variety of tint, 

 for while the matured leaves are of the darkest green, 

 the young leaves just expanding are in colour of a 

 reddish brown. The contrast of colour, perfectly har- 

 monious, is most charming. I should add, however, 

 that it is only in the Doon that the mango tree is seen 

 in this perfection. The mango tree in the plains is, 

 both in size and beauty, much inferior, though still, 

 there as here, the queen of the groves. 



Although the mango tree is so characteristic of 

 India, and is found everywhere in such profusion, I 

 have always been assured by the natives that it is not 

 indigenous to the soil, at least of Hindostan, and also 

 that it never here grows wild, and that of all the 

 millions of mango trees now existing each one has 

 been separately planted. 



I may explain, for the benefit of the reader, that 



