13^ THE VAST. 



the tree which Milton makes afford to our guilty first 

 parents the "fig-leaves" with which they hoped to clothe 

 their new-found nakedness. 



" So cotmsell'd he, and both together went 

 Into the thickest wood ; there soon they chose 

 The fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renown'd ; 

 But such as at this day, to Indians known 

 In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms, 

 Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 

 The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade 

 High overarch' d, and echoing walks between : 

 There oft the Indian herdsman shunning heat, • 

 Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 

 At loopholes cut through thickest shade : those leaves 

 They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe ; 

 And, with what skill they had, together sew'd. 

 To gird their waist." * 



Banyans exist which are much older than the Christian 

 era. Dr Koxburgh mentions some whose area is more 

 than fifteen hundred feet in circumference, and one hun- 

 dred in height, the principal trunk being twenty or thirty 

 feet to the horizontal boughs, and eight or nine feet in 

 diameter. But the most celebrated tree of this kind is 

 one gTowing on the banks of the Nerbudda, and covering 

 an almost incredible area, of which the circumference stiU 

 existing is nearly two thousand feet, though a consider- 

 able portion has been swept away by the floods of the 

 river. The overhanging branches which have not (or had 

 not at the time this description was made) yet thrown 

 down their perpendicular shoots, cover a far wider space. 



• Paradise Lost, book is. 



