STRANGE PLANTS AND THEIR WA YS. 47 



supported at both extremities, as a bridge by its piers. 

 The main limbs reach gigantic size, and send out lateral 

 branches, which, in turn, take root and form new sup- 

 ports. These new trunks often rival or surpass the par- 

 ent stem, and this process continues for ages, until the 

 tree covers acres of ground, and presents the appearance 

 of a marvelous colonnade of stems supporting numberless 

 living rafters, and all covered with a dense canopy of per- 

 ennial green. 



4. There is a banyan in Ceylon which measures fifteen 

 hundred feet around the branches — more than a quarter of 

 a mile. Under the shade of a still larger tree on the banks 

 of the Nerbuddah, in India, which measures a circuit of 

 twenty-two hundred feet, whose large trunks number three 

 hundred and fifty-four, whose small ones exceed three thou- 

 sand, and whose foliage makes a home for thousands of birds 

 and monkeys, the chief of Putnah used to encamp in mag- 

 nificent style. 



5. Here he would entertain his guests on his tiger-hunt- 

 ing expeditions. Separate tents were gorgeously fitted up 

 as bed-chambers, and each guest having one had three 

 servants at his command. Saloons, drawing-rooms, dining- 

 rooms, smoking-rooms, kitchens — all were perfectly ap- 

 pointed. Including all the animals and servants, there 

 were seven thousand individuals in the retinue, yet the 

 great banyan easily sheltered them all. Here, when the 

 glow and flush of the fierce sun had given way to the cool 

 dews of evening, the guests of the Oriental prince sipped 

 their sherbet or champagne, and watched the movements 

 of the dancing girls, while the monkeys chattered and the 

 night-birds sang in the leafage above, and the pale moon- 

 shine glinted down through the openings in the vast roof. 



6. Such is the gigantic fig-tree of India, truly one of 

 the wonders of the world, and not to be matched even in a 

 country where a hot sun combines witli a rich soil to pro- 



