THE VAST. 



trunks, in a peculiar manner of growth. As its 

 horizontal limbs spread on all sides, shoots de- 

 scend from them to the earth, in which they root, 

 and become so many secondary steins, extending 

 their own lateral branches, which in turn send 

 down fresh rooting shoots, thus ever widening the 

 area of this wondrous forest, composed of a single 

 organic life. This is 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 counsellM 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. Roxburgh mentions some 

 whose area is more than fifteen hundred feet in 

 circumference, and one hundred in height, the 

 principal trunk being twenty or thirty feet to the 

 horizontal boughs, and eight or nine feet in di- 

 ameter. But the most celebrated tree of this kind 

 is one growing on the banks of the Nerbudda, 

 and covering an almost incredible area, of which 

 the circumference still existing is nearly two thou- 

 sand feet, though a considerable portion has been 



* M Paradise Lost," book ix. 

 131 



