ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 95 



which I have often seen, and which are probably the 

 surviving remnants of an ancient garden or pleasure-ground 

 of Montezuma, measure, (according to Burkart's account 

 of his travels, Bd. i. S. 268, a work which otherwise con- 

 tains much information), only 36 and 38 English feet in 

 circumference; not in diameter, as has often been erro- 

 neously asserted. The Buddhists in Ceylon venerate the 

 gigantic trunk of the sacred fig-tree of Anourahdepoura. 

 The Indian fig-tree or Banyan, of which the branches take 

 root round the parent stem, forming, as Onesicritus well 

 described, a leafy canopy resembling a many -pillared tent, 

 often attain a thickness of 28 (29|- English) feet diameter. 

 (Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 260.) On 

 the Bombax ceiba, see early notices of the time of Columbus, 

 in Bembo's Historise Yenetse, 1551, fol. 83. 



Among oak-trees, of those which, have been accurately 

 measured, the largest in Europe is no doubt that near the 

 town of Saintes, in the Departement de la Charente Infe- 

 rieure, on the road to Cozes. This tree, which is 60 (64 

 English) feet high, has a diameter of 27 feet 8J inches 

 (29i English feet) near the ground ; 21 (almost 23 Eng- 

 lish) feet five feet higher up ; and where the great boughs 

 commence 6 Parisian feet (6 feet 5 inches English.) In 

 the dead part of the trunk a little chamber has been 

 arranged, from 10 feet 8 inches to 12 feet 9 inches wide, 

 and' 9 feet 8 inches high (all English measure), with a 

 serai-circular bench cut out of the fresh wood. A window 

 gives light to the interior, so that the sides of the chamber 

 (which is closed with a door) are clothed with ferns and 



