THE BO'TREB. 
33 
its branches, is reverettced by the BuddMsts as the sacred 
plant, under whose shade (Tautma, the founder of their 
religion, reclined when he underwent his didne trans- 
figuration. Itg heart-shaped leaves, which, like those of 
the aspen, appear in the profoundest calm to be ever in 
motion, are supposed to tremble iu recollection of that 
mysterious scene. 
The sacred Pippul at Anarajapoora, tlie fallen capital 
of the ancient kings of Ceylon, is probably the oldest 
hisioneai tree in the world ; as it was planted 288 years 
before Christ, and hence is now 21 50 years oki The 
enormous age of the Baobabs of Senegal, and of the 
wondrous Wellingtonias of California, can only be con- 
jectured; but the anti4uity of the Do-tree is matter of 
record, as its preservation has been an object of solicitude 
to successive dynasties j and the story of its foi-t^mes 
has been preserved in a series of continuous chi-onieles 
amongst the most authentic that have been banded down 
by mankind. 
"Compared with it^ the Oak of Ellerslie is but a 
sapling, and the Conqueror*s Oak in Windsor Forest 
barely numbers half its years. The yew trees of Foun- 
tains Abbey are believed to have flourished there 1200 
years ago j the olives iu the Garden of Gethsemane were 
full-grown when the Saracens were expelled from Jeru- 
salem, and the cypress of Somma in Lorabardy is said to 
have been a tree in the time of Julius Cassar. Yet the 
Bo-tree is older than the oldest of these by a century, 
and would almost seem to verify the prophecy pi-onounced 
when it was planted, that it would ' flourish and be green 
for ever,'" 
Although far inferior to these wonders of the vegetable 
world in ampUtude of growth, yet the Teak tree, or 
Indian oak, far surpasses them in value, as the ship-worm 
in the water, and the termite on land, equally refrain 
from afctacldng its close-grained strongly scented wood-; 
and no timber equals it for shipbuilding purposes. 
E 
