28 
The artless behaviour of this poor animal wrought so powerfully 
on the sportsmen, that they resolved never more to level a gun at 
one of the monkey race. 
The banian tree I am now describing, is called by the Hindoos 
cubbeer-burr, in memory of a favourite saint, and was much re- 
sorted to by the English gentlemen from Baroche, Putnali was 
then a flourishing chiefehip, on the banks of the Nerbuddah, about 
ten miles from this celebrated tree. The chief was extremely fond 
of field diversions, and used to encamp under it in a magnificent 
style; having a saloon, dining-room, drawing-room, bed chambers* 
bath, kitchen, and every other accommodation, all in separate 
tents; yet did this noble tree cover the whole; together with his 
carriages, horses, camels, guards, and attendants. While its spread- 
ing branches afforded shady spots for the tents of his friends, with 
their servants and cattle. And in the march of an army, it has 
been known to shelter seven thousand men. 
Such is the banian tree, the pride of Hindostan, which Milton 
has thus discriminately and poetically introduced into his Paradise 
Lost: 
Then both together went 
“ Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose 
“ The fig-tree. Not that tree for fruit renown’d, 
“ But such, and at this day to Indians known 
fC In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms, 
" Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
“ The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
“ About the mother tree; a pillar’d shade 
,e High over-arch’d, and echoing walks between : 
** There oft the Indian herdsman shunning heat, 
,f Shelters in .cool, and tends his pasturing herds, 
' f At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.’ 
