Chap. 11.] 
THE INDIAIS" FIG. 
109 
CHAP. 9. AVHEN EBONY WAS FIEST SEEN AT EOME. THE YAEI0U9 
KINDS OF EBONY. 
Pompeius Magnus displayed ebony on the occasion of his 
triumph over Mithridates. Fabianus declares, that this wood 
will give out no flame ; it burns, however, with a very agree- 
able smell. There are two kinds of ebony ; the rarest kind 
is the best, and is produced from a tree that is singularly free 
from knots. The wood is black and shining, and pleasing to 
the eye, without any adventitious aid from art. The other 
kind of ebony is the produce of a shrub which resembles tho 
cytisus, and is to be found scattered over the whole of India. 
CHAP. 10. (5.) THE INDIAN THOEN. 
There is in India, also, a kind of thorn very similar to 
ebony, though it may be distinguished from it, by the aid of 
a lantern even ; for, on the application of flame, it will in- 
stantly run across the tree. "We wiU now proceed to describe 
those trees which were the admiration of Alexander the Great 
in his victorious career, when that part of the world was first 
revealed by his arras. 
CHAP. 1 1 . THE INDIAN FIG. 
The Indian fig bears but a small fruit. Alwaj'-s growing 
spontaneously, it spreads far and wide with its vast branches, 
the ends of which bend downwards into the ground to such a 
degree, that they take fresh root in the course of a year, and 
thus form a new plantation around the parent stock, traced in 
a circular form, just as though it had been the work of the 
ornamental gardener. Within the bowers thus formed, the 
shepherds take up their abode in the summer, the space occu- 
pied by them being, at once, overshadowed and protected by 
Fee remarks, that the words of Pliny do not afford us any means of 
judging precisely what tree it was that he understood by the name of ebony. 
He borrows his account mainly from Theophrastus. 
It is not known to what tree he alludes. 
This account of the Ficus Indica, or religiosa, known to us as the 
banian-tree, is borrowed entirely from Theophrastus. Fee remarks, how- 
ever, that he is wrong in some of his statements, for that the leaves are not 
crescent-shaped, but oblong and pointed, and that the IVuit has not a plea- 
sant flavour, and is only eaten by the birds. 
