l6gi.] THE BANYAN OR SACKED KASTA. 67 



Isle of Stc. Brande, very far into the Sea ; and from thence 

 brouoht to us by the Tide and the Currents. 



There's a wonderful fine Tree at Rodrigo, whose Branches 

 are so round, and so thick, 'tis impossible for the Sun-Beams 

 to penetrate thro' it : Some of these Trees are so big, that 

 two or three hundred People may stand under them, and be 

 shelter'd from the Sun or the Weather.^ 



The vast Extent of it is occasioned thus. Some of the 

 great Branches naturally tend downwards, and reaching the 

 Ground take Eoot, and become new Trunks themselves, 

 which make a sort of little Forest. 



The first time I saw this Tree, I remember I had read in 

 some Voyages, that they are to be met with every where in the 

 Indies, and in the Continent and Isles of America. I do not 

 think there's any of them in Europe. The Eastern Idolaters 

 have a great Eespect for them, and commonly build their 

 Pa/jods under them. 



1 There can be little doubt that Leguat's description and the authors 

 he cites point to the bany;m {Ficus indicu). its great height and the 

 vast area it covers with its interlacing branches, the curious way these 

 have of taking root and forniing new stems, are all characteristic of this 

 remarkable tree, which has been a favourite theme of writers in prose 

 and verse in all ages, from the days of Pliny to our own times. 



But, though indigenous to India, Southern Persia, and Ceylon, the 

 banyan is foreign to the Mascarene flora. We may suppose, there- 

 fore, either that it was formerly extant and has become extinct in 

 Rodriguez, or that Leguat referred to some other species of Ficus. 

 Balfour describes two— F. consirnilis and F. rubra— io\xr\A by him on 

 that island, where they are both common, but adds that neither of 

 them is the one described by Leguat. Baker mentions these and 

 several other species in his Flora of Mauritius (pp. 288 seqq.), and Sir 

 Henry Barkly iuforms the writer that there is a large tree of F. con- 

 sirnilis in Seychelles, and that the bats feed on its fruit precisely as 

 Leguat describes at Rodriguez ; but the size of the leaves and fruit is 

 much smaller than his species. {Phil. Trans., I. c, p. 368-; Balfour's 

 Timber-Trees of India, p. 117 ; Helmsley's Vegetation of Diecjo Garcia, 

 in Linn. Soc. Journal, vol. xxii, p. 334.) 



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