The Desert World

A Black Swan is no longer a “rara avis.” The species (Cygnus atratus) belongs to New Holland and Tasmania, and is of the same size as the common swan. His plumage is wholly black, with the exception of the primary pens, which are white; his beak is red, and so is the featherless skin surrounding it at the base. He has been successfully acclimatized in Europe, and ornaments the lakes and streams of many English parks.

The Cereopsis, or Cerefaced Goose, of New Holland, is a Palmiped genus, about the size of a common goose, which, in general appearance, he resembles, except that his legs are longer, averaging from two and a half to three feet. The plumage is of a dingy gray. A large patch of dull white occupies the top of the head; the quill-feathers, both of the wings and tail, are of a dusty black. His voice has a hoarse deep clang, like that of a storm-bell. He usually weighs from seven to ten pounds, and makes an excellent dish for an Australian Christmas table. Specimens may be seen both in the Zoological Gardens of London and Paris.

Apteryx Australis.

The Apteryx Australis, or Wingless Emu—the Kiwi of the New Zealanders—somewhat resembles a penguin in form, and stands about two feet in height. The only living specimen in Europe lives, I believe, in the London Zoological Gardens. As it does not appear to rank, in scientific classification, with any other family or genus, naturalists have erected it into a distinct order—the Nullipennes, or Wingless. The wings of the apteryx are literally rudiments; a mere stump, terminated by a hook. None of his bones are hollow; he has no abdominal air-cells; his feathers have no accessory plume; his feet have a short and elevated hind-toe; his eyes are small; he feeds on insects; and his habits are nocturnal. He is a bird of great physical power, and runs with ostrich-like swiftness; taking refuge, when pursued, in burrows, hollow trees, and the clefts of the rocks. His cry resembles a loud whistle, and the natives entrap the bird by imitating it. When the female has been taken, the male is easily caught, owing to his reluctance to leave her. He will, however, defend himself vigorously with his spurs.

BOOK IV.

T H E   F O R E S T S.

CHAPTER I.

THE VIRGIN FORESTS.

n all parts of the world some regions exist where, owing to a concourse of favourable circumstances, the productive forces of Nature have been able to manifest themselves with an exceptional energy—where vegetable life, in particular, has acquired an extraordinary development. The rich soil is covered, over more or less extensive areas, with vivacious plants, robust and of great stature, which closely rooted, one against another, with intertwining and overarching boughs, sustaining by their bulk and shading with their foliage other and weaker plants, have formed in the course of innumerable ages those masses of umbrageous gloom called Forests.

THE VIRGIN FOREST OF THE GABOON.

The forests fill an important function in the general economy of the globe, by the influence which they exercise upon the mean temperature and the other meteorological conditions of the regions they shelter. All other things being equal, the temperature of well-wooded countries is perceptibly less elevated and more uniform than that of dry and open districts. The amount of humidity which is retained on the surface of the soil by wide-spread woods is considerable; it results from the lesser evaporation of the waters, the abundant transpiration of the leaves, and the heavy rains which inundate the forests during the tropical summer. Forests, like mountains, seem to attract the clouds. So the plains which lie on their borders are ever better watered and fertile than those whose horizon no obstacle encumbers.

Thus, then, in the forests, in this bright and beautiful world of vegetation, most of the pleasures which man can derive from external nature are garnered up, and most of the lessons he requires are written. All kinds of precious grace and teaching, says Mr. Ruskin,[145] are united in this link between the Earth and the Stars: wonderful in universal adaptation to his need, desire, and discipline; God’s daily preparation of the earth for him, with beautiful means of life. “First, a carpet to make it soft for him; then, a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among the moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage: easily to be cut, yet tough and light, to make houses for him, or instruments (lance-shaft, or plough handle, according to his temper); useless it had been, if harder; useless, if less fibrous; useless, if less elastic. Winter comes, and the shade of leafage falls away, to let the sun warm the earth; the strong boughs remain, breaking the strength of winter winds. The seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man, or provision for his service: cold juice, or glowing spice, or balm, or incense, softening oil, preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, or lulling charm—and all these presented in forms of endless change. Fragility and force, softness and strength, in all degrees of aspects; unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or undivided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground; mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet. Roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the transience of the sand; crests basking in sunshine of the desert, or hiding by dripping spring and lightless cave; foliage for tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of ocean—clothing with variegated, everlasting fibres, the peaks of the trackless mountains, or ministering at cottage doors to every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity.”

Forests formerly abounded in Europe. In Gallia, Germania, Illyria, Sarmatia, whole provinces were covered with immense woods of ancient and patriarchal trees. Civilization has destroyed them in great part, and often without discernment. At the present day few forests in Europe remain untouched. They are rare in Western Asia, in Central Asia, and in Northern Asia; rarer still in the Chinese empire, where the population is denser than in any other country of the world, and where it is the great object of the policy of the State that not a rood of land shall be lost for the culture of plants valuable as food or for industrial purposes. It is only to the south of the Himalaya Mountains, in the still savage and scantily peopled regions of India and Indo-China, that one sees the great vegetables of the Tropical Zone agglomerated in compact masses of considerable extent.

When Captain Palliser’s expedition attempted to reach the head waters of the North Thompson from the sources of the North Saskatchewan River, the leader encountered a forest-growth so dense, and so encumbered with fallen timber, that it proved an insurmountable obstacle. Viscount Milton and Mr. Cheadle, in their adventurous journey across the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia, were involved in one of these wildernesses, and with difficulty effected a passage. “No one,” they remark,[147] “who has not seen a primeval forest, where trees of gigantic size have grown and fallen undisturbed for ages, can form any idea of the collection of timber, or the impenetrable character of such a region. There were pines and thujas of every size—the patriarch of 300 feet in height standing alone, or thickly-clustering groups of young ones struggling for the vacant place of some prostrate giant. The fallen trees lay piled around, forming barriers often six or eight feet high on every side: trunks of huge cedars, moss-grown and decayed, lay half-buried in the ground on which others as mighty had recently fallen; trees still green and living, recently blown down, blocking the view with the walls of earth held in their matted roots; living trunks, dead trunks, rotten trunks; dry, barkless trunks, and trunks moist and green with moss; bare trunks, and trunks with branches—prostrate, reclining, horizontal, propped up at different angles; timber of every size, in every stage of growth and decay, in every possible position, entangled in every possible combination. The swampy ground was densely covered with American dog-wood, and elsewhere with thickets of the aralea, a tough-stemmed trailer, with leaves as large as those of the rhubarb-plant, and growing in many places as high as a man’s shoulders. Both stem and leaves are covered with sharp spines, which pierce your clothes as you force your way through the tangled growth, and make the legs and hands of the pioneers scarlet from the inflammation of myriads of punctures.”

Far grander the scene, however—far richer in form and colour—which meets our gaze in the stupendous forest growth still covering the basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco. As a companion to the foregoing picture, we borrow one of this brighter and more wonderful region as painted with equal truth and vigour by Mr. Bates:—[148]

“The ground was thickly carpeted with Lycopodiums,[149] but it was also encumbered with masses of vegetable débris and a thick coating of dead leaves. Fruits of many kinds were scattered about, amongst which were numerous species of beans, some of the pods a foot long, flat and leathery in texture, others hard as stone. In one place might be seen a quantity of large empty wooden vessels; such they appeared to be, but in reality they had fallen from the Sapucaya tree. They are called Monkey’s Drinking-cups (Cuyas de Macaco), and are the capsules of the nuts sold under this appellation in Covent Garden Market. The top of the vessel is pierced with a circular hole, in which a natural lid fits easily. When the nuts ripen this lid becomes loosened, and down falls the heavy shell with a crash, scattering the nuts over the ground. The tree[150] which bears this extraordinary burthen is of immense height. It is closely allied to the Brazil-nut tree,[151] whose seeds are likewise enclosed in large wooden vessels, but these are without lids, and fall entire to the ground. It is at least 120 feet high, and rises to the noble stature of 100 feet before it throws off any branches. From twelve to twenty of these sweet edible nuts lie in a pod. The monkeys are very partial to them, and will patiently sit for hours hammering at a capsule with a stone, in order to open it; and as soon as they have succeeded, the on-lookers rush to the spot, to purloin as many as they can. The natives assail the quarreling party with stones, a proceeding which incites the monkeys to revenge themselves by a discharge of nuts. By this means the Indians load their boats without trouble, and the monkeys are left to make a fresh foray.”

In his forest wanderings, Mr. Bates was especially attracted by the colossal trees. He says that, on the whole, they had not remarkably thick stems; the great and uniform height to which they grow without throwing off a branch is a much more noticeable feature than their thickness; but at intervals he paused before a veritable giant. Only one of these huge patriarchs of the woods can flourish within a given space; it monopolizes the domain, and none but humble individuals can nestle within its shadow. The cylindrical trunks of these larger trees were generally about twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference. Von Martius, another Brazilian traveller, mentions having measured trees in the Pará district, belonging to various species (Symphonia coccinea, Lecythis spirula, and Cratæva Tapia), which were fifty to sixty feet in girth at the point where they become cylindrical! The height of the vast column-like stems could not be less than 100 feet from the ground to their lowest branch. The total height of the Pao d’Ano[152] and the Massaranduba, stem and crown together, may be computed at from 180 to 200 feet. Where one of them stands, the vast canopy of leafiness rises above the other forest trees like a domed cathedral above the minor buildings of a city.

A very curious feature in these trees is the growth of buttress-shaped projections around the lower part of their stems. The spaces between these buttresses, which may be compared to thin walls of wood, form spacious chambers, like stalls in a stable; some of them large enough to hold half-a-dozen persons. “The purpose of these structures,” says Mr. Bates, “is as obvious at the first glance, as that of the similar props of brickwork which support a high wall. They are not peculiar to one species, but are common to most of the larger forest trees. Their nature and manner of growth are explained when a series of young trees of different ages is examined. It is then seen that they are the roots, which have raised themselves ridge-like out of the earth; growing gradually upwards as the increasing height of the tree required augmented support. Thus they are plainly intended to sustain the massive crown and trunk in these crowded forests, where lateral growth of the roots in the earth is rendered difficult by the number of competitors.”

Among other remarkable inhabitants of the Brazilian wilderness, we may name the lofty Moira-tingu,[153] the Samaüma,[154] and the Massaranduba or Cow tree.[155] The Eriodendron Samaüma, or Silk-cotton tree, holds in the New World the same position as the Bombax in the Old. It rises to an enormous stature without branches, and then spreads out a glorious mass of foliage. The bark is light in colour; and the capsule pod contains a large quantity of down, of a brown tint, and exquisite silky softness. The Massaranduba is also called the Palo de Vacca, the Arbor de Lacte, the Galactodendron utile, or the Cow tree. Its bark furnishes an abundant supply of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the cow. If exposed to the air it thickens into a glue, which is excessively tenacious, and often employed to cement broken crockery. The tree has a wild, strange appearance, owing to its deeply scored, reddish, and rugged bark, a decoction of which is used as a red dye for cloth.

Did our readers ever hear of the Pashiúba, or bulging-stemmed palm?[156] It is not one of the tallest kinds, for its height, when full grown, seldom exceeds forty feet; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets broader, than in other species; but if less beautiful, it is, perhaps, far more remarkable. Its roots grow above ground, radiating from the trunk at an elevation of ten or twelve feet, so that the tree seems to be supported on stilts; and when it is old, a person can stand upright amongst the roots with the perpendicular stem wholly above his head! About midway, this stem bulges out in a circular swelling, which gives it its distinctive name. The roots closely resemble straight rods, but they are studded with stout thorns, whilst the trunk of the Pashiúba is perfectly smooth.

In the foremost rank of those who have possessed the twofold qualification of scientific knowledge and descriptive power, we must place the illustrious Humboldt. His works are a rich storehouse from which later writers have freely borrowed the materials of their essays. In reference to the phrases “ Virgin Forest,” “Primeval Forest,” he has some judicious observations:—Ought we to call, he says, by either of these appellations every kind of wild thick wood, encumbered with vigorous trees, upon which man has never laid his destructive hand? In that case they would be appropriate in a number of very different countries, under the Temperate, ay, and even under the Frigid Zone. But if we intend them to designate the impenetrability of an almost boundless forest, the impossibility of clearing a path with the pioneer’s axe between serried ranks of trees, not one of which is less than from eight to ten feet in diameter, such virgin forests belong exclusively to tropical regions. We must not believe, however, according to the ordinary story in Europe, in the creeping parasitical lianas which, by the interlacement and entanglement of their branches, render the equatorial forests impenetrable. The lianas form but a comparatively insignificant portion of the underwood. The principal obstacle is found in the arborescent plants, which leave not a space uncovered, and this, too, in a country where all vegetables spreading over the soil become ligneous. If a traveller, as soon as he arrives in a tropical clime, whether in the continent or the islands, believes, even before he has penetrated inland, that he is transported to the heart of the virgin forests, his error simply originates in his impatience to realize a long-cherished desire. All Tropical forests are not virgin forests.

The true virgin forests, notwithstanding the recent explorations of Wallace, Bates, and Agassiz, are very imperfectly known; because it is, in truth, perfectly impossible to survey them in every direction, on account of their vast extent and astonishing impenetrability. When we are told by the traveller that he opened for himself a path with his trusty hatchet, we readily understand that he achieved his boasted victory in places where the obstacles were reduced to feeble lianas and brushwood of no great density, and that he turned aside from the massive barriers formed by the closely-planted trunks of colossal trees. Than these mighty vegetable Anakim, nothing, says a naturalist, is more imperfectly known in botany. The stems of most being bare and branchless up to a considerable height, their fructification is frequently beyond the reach of man. In vain would he level them by their base: their summits remain suspended by the inter-tanglement of the neighbouring summits, and like so many Tantaluses, our travellers see themselves shunned by the fruits which their eyes devour. The rivers, those “tracks which march” through the leafy, woody depths, and the tortuous paths trodden down by generations of wild beasts in their quest after new pastures, after fresh hunting-grounds, or fountains to slake their thirst, are the only roads which can be pursued by the explorer.

THE VIRGIN FOREST IN BRAZIL.

As far as concerns their botanical composition, the virgin forests of the Tropics are distinguished from those of cold and temperate regions by general characters which it will, perhaps, be useful to indicate. If, for example, we adopt as our standard of comparison the European forest, we there remark, in the first place, the complete absence of trees belonging to the important groups of Acotyledons and Monocotyledons, and, in consequence, of the superb palms and elegant arboreal ferns of tropical countries. Or, considering only the Dicotyledonous plants, we see again that, in lands bordering on the Equator, there is scarcely a family of this class which does not furnish its contingent of woody plants, offering most frequently, with forms of infinite variety, clearly displayed and brilliant flowers, remarkable either for their beauty or their fragrance,—

while our trees are comprised in a small number of natural groups, and present in general very opposite features; as, for instance, an almost uniform character or aspect, and flowers scarcely visible and of little elegance.

It suffices to name the families of the Coniferæ and the Amentaceæ, which compose the greater portion of the Flora of our forests. Moreover, as Humboldt observes, in the Temperate Zone, particularly in Europe and the north of Asia, certain species of trees (plantæ sociales) grow together, and form of themselves forests which we may designate by their specific name. In the forests of oaks, firs, and birches which cover the countries of the North, in the forests of limes of the East, one unique species of Amentaceæ, Coniferæ, or Tiliaceæ generally prevails. This uniform society is foreign to the Tropical forests. The infinite variety of flowers which expand in these Hylææ do not permit us to ask of what the virgin forests are composed. An innumerable quantity of different families stand side by side; even in the most confined spaces it is rare to see trees of the same nature re-united. Every day, as the traveller advances, he discovers new forms; oftentimes the outline of the leaf and the ramification of a tree attract his attention, without his being able to distinguish the flowers.

More distinctive differences may be remarked, at the first glance, in the animal life which peoples the forests of the different quarters of the world; but yet these animals everywhere display the same habits. The great majority of the insects and the birds, the apes, the squirrels, and, in general, all the arboreal animals, awake and put themselves in motion at the first glimpse of day, and animate the forest with their murmurs, their songs, their utterances, their lively sports and frolicsome gambols.

I borrow from the entertaining pages of an English traveller the following description of the diurnal cycle of phenomena which revolves in the depths of a virgin forest.[157]

In the early dawn the sky is invariably cloudless; the heavy dew or the previous night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which, rising straight out of the east, mounts rapidly towards the zenith. All nature is fresh, new leaves and flower-buds expanding rapidly. Some mornings a single tree will appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform green mass of forest—a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic. The birds are all active; from the wild fruit trees, not far off, we hear the shrill yelping of the Tucano (Ramphastos vitellinus). Small flocks of parrots flow over on most mornings at a great height, appearing in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two by two chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular intervals. Their bright colours, however, are not discernible at such a height.

Towards two o’clock the heat rapidly increases, and every voice of bird or mammal grows hushed; only in the trees sounds at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping; the flowers shed their petals. On most days in June or July a heavy shower will fall some time in the afternoon, producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain clouds takes place after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool sea-breeze, which commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which increases in force with the increasing power of the sun, flags, and finally dies away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere then grows almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness seize on every one; even the denizens of the forest betraying it by their motions. White clouds rising in the east gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon becomes almost suddenly black, and this darkness spreads upwards, obscuring the “orb of day.”

“It results from this,” says Mr. Bates, “that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. Of course there is no hybernation, nor, as the dry season is not excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some tropical countries. Plants do not flower or shed their leaves, nor do birds moult, pair, or breed simultaneously. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumnal, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same, or nearly so, every day in the year—budding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf-shedding are always going on in one species or other. The activity of birds and insects proceeds without interruption, each species having its own separate times. The colonies of wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations and colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralizing themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding mid-way across the sky, and the daily temperature the same within two or three degrees throughout the year, how grand in its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the equator!”

CHAPTER II.

VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE FORESTS OF THE OLD WORLD.

I DO not think that in all Europe, nor, indeed, in the entire Temperate Zone of the Old World, exists such an agglomeration of plants and trees as may merit the appellation of “primeval” or “virgin forest.” At all events, this forest, if it really exists, will assuredly be composed of the very trees which we see every day in our own woods, our fields, our parks, and even in our towns, and which have long ceased to awaken in us the idea of wild nature. With the woods of Great Britain, France, or Spain we are all familiar:—

Our poets have sung of the murmurous groves of pines, and the deep dark beech-woods that clothe with shadows the rounded forms of the chalk-hills, and the long alleys of blossoming chestnut, fragrant lime, or sombre yew. Therefore, without losing valuable time in these familiar shades, without pausing before the oak which the history of a thousand years has made immortal, let us rapidly traverse the Corsican forests, where among the twisted leaves of the elms flourishes the gigantic Larician pine; those of Greece, where thrive the pines of Cephalonia and Apollo, and the oaks sacred also to the divinity of Delphi and Dodona—those oaks, dumb to-day, which formerly gave utterance to oracles not less reverend than those of the Pythoness. We will not even suffer ourselves to be delayed among the forests of Eastern Europe, of Asia Minor, and of Persia, where dominate such species as the pine, the beech, and the chestnut. It is not until we have crossed the Indus—that mighty river on whose banks halted the legions of Alexander—that the exuberant vegetation of the Tropical world breaks upon us in all its glorious verdure and prodigious richness, though confined to a comparatively limited area.

The wooded region of the western Ghauts, from Goa to Cape Camorin, exhibits the greatest abundance of plants peculiar to Southern Asia.

To form an idea of the variety and potency of the Flora of this region, says M. Lanoye,[159] we must contemplate the specimens immured in our European gardens, and augment tenfold their etiolated proportions; we must bring together, in the dazzling confusion of Nature, the Mimosas, the Musas, the odorous Screw-pines, the Mangoes, and the Orange trees; twine around their trunks the many-branched stems of the Bignonias, the Nagatelly, the Dictantes-Sambas, and the Lianas which furnish pepper and the betel-nut; group under their shade the most beautiful varieties of Azaleas, Jasmines, and Gardenias; unite those Laurels whence we extract camphor, cassia, and cinnamon, with the red Santul, the Nopals, and the Dragon trees which supply the costly gum-lacs; the Shrubs which give us spikenard, cardamoms, and amome, with those Canes which secrete sugar. Above these masses of flowers, above these sources of honey and perfume, we must next display the immense leaves of the Talipot and the Bourbon-palm, must spread in undulations the aërial palm-crests of the Cocoa-nut and the gigantic Bamboo; must accumulate the sombre verdure of the Teaks and the Tamarinds, and the impenetrable branches of the consecrated Pines. Then, all this being accomplished, we shall still have but a vague and colourless perception of the Indian Flora, and notably of that which clothes the base of the Western Ghauts to the east and to the south of the city of Goa.

We notice in the first place several trees whose close relationship cannot be mistaken to the date trees which we have already met with in the open Desert, and which, we may remember, constituted the entire wealth of the inhabitants of the oases. We find representatives of the immense family of palms in every tropical country, and even in the coral islands of the great ocean. India possesses several species. I shall refer only to the Borassus flabelliformis, whose trunk, 90 to 120 feet in height, is surmounted by a crown of great fan-shaped leaves, folded longitudinally in their first half, cut in the other, and sustained by prickly supports. The other half is made use of by the Hindus in the shape of paper, or rather tablets, on which they write with the point of a stylet. The spadices (clustered flowers), if incised before reaching maturity, yield a liquid which, after fermentation, forms the favourite Indian beverage of “palm wine.”

The Banana,[160] like the Bamboo and most of the palms, is a cosmopolitan plant throughout the tropic world. Its native habitat is supposed to be Asia. The Oriental Christians have a tradition that this tree, which they call the Lignum Vitæ, was that whose fruit was forbidden to our first parents. Hence the name of Musa paradisiaca, given by botanists to one of the two species of the genus; the other is the Banana of the wise men, Musa sapientum. However this may be, it is certain that if the use of the banana was at any time interdicted to man, the prohibition has been annulled for many generations; and its fruits form one of the most wholesome and most general articles of food in tropical countries. Although the wild banana maintains its place honourably in the forests of these regions, it is not a tree, but an herbaceous plant. It propagates itself through its suckers, and its stem perishes immediately after fructification. Its mode of vegetation is analogous to that of the Liliaceæ. From a bulbous and fleshy platform issue, beneath, its fibrous roots; above, enormous leaves, often nearly a yard wide and two to three yards long. The petioles of these leaves are adhesive. By folding themselves one over another, and successively drying up, they grow into a stem which sometimes attains the dimensions of the trunk of an ordinary tree (about seven feet) and the stature of twelve to sixteen feet, and which is traversed throughout its centre by a stalk springing from the bulb. This stalk rises again several inches above the terminal leaf, then bends, sinks towards the ground, and terminates in a stem which carries at its extremity the male flowers, and at its base the female flowers, then the fruit. The latter, collected in clusters of twelve to fourteen, are elongated, of a prismatic triangular form, enveloped in a rind, green at first, then yellow, and internally consist of a soft, feculent, sugary pulp, very nutritious, and agreeable to the taste.

The Banyan Tree (Ficus Indica).

By the side of these weak-stemmed plants, with their soft and spongy contexture, grow hosts of robust trees, whose timber is compact and sometimes exceedingly hard, and whose branches are of immense span. My readers will probably remember the lines in which Southey so admirably describes one of the most majestic and most singular of these: the Banyan, or Indian Fig-tree (Ficus Indica),[161] also designated the “Multiplying Fig-tree,” the “Admirable Fig-tree,” and “Tree of Life.” The passage will bear transcription:[162]—