422 



THE DEODAR. 



getting it established in Britain, where there is 

 every prospect of its doing well. It grows fast 

 in favourable situations, sometimes making shoots 

 two feet long in a single season. 



Bishop Heber, in a letter to Lord Grenville, 

 giving an account of a visit which he paid to the 

 Himalayan Mountains, describes it as a splendid 

 tree, with gigantic arms and dark narrow leaves, 

 which is accounted sacred, and is chiefly seen in 

 the neighbourhood of ancient Hindoo temples, 

 and which struck my unscientific eye as nearly 

 resembling the Cedar of Lebanon.^ I found it 

 flourishing at nearly nine thousand feet above 

 the level of the sea, and when the frost was as 

 severe at night as is usually met with at the 

 same season in England." 



Mr. Moorcroft gives the following proofs of 

 the durability of the timber : A few years ago 

 a building, erected by the order of the Emperor 

 Akbar, probably about 1597, was taken down, 

 and its timber, which was that of the Deodar, 

 was found so little impaired as to be fit to be 

 employed in a house built by Rajah Shah. Its 

 age must then have been two hundred and twenty- 

 five years." He also describes a mausoleum, which 

 was erected nearly four hundred years since, the 

 walls of which are of brick and mortar, strengthened 

 with beams of Deodar. In this last instance, the 

 sap-wood, which had been carelessly left in some 

 places, had been pierced by a worm to the depth 



* So closely do the Cedar and Deodar resemble each other in 

 botanical characters, that Sir "\V. J. Hooke says : " No botanist, in 

 describing the trees, has given cleai' and distinctire botanical charac- 

 ters." Captain Mimro, ^vho has travelled much among the Deodars 

 of the Himalaya, considers them mere varieties of the Cedar of 

 Lebanon. 



