[1773.—In a letter from Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossory, dated April 30th, 1773 (Cunningham's ed., v. 459) he describes a ball at Lord Stanley's, at which two of the dancers, Mr. Storer and Miss Wrottesley, were dressed "in banians with furs, for winter, cock and hen." It would be interesting to have further details of these garments, which were, it may be hoped, different from the modern Banyan.]
1810.—"... an undershirt, commonly called a banian."—Williamson, V.M. i. 19.
(3) BANYAN, s. See [BANYAN-TREE].
BANYAN-DAY, s. This is sea-slang for a jour maigre, or a day on which no ration of meat was allowed; when (as one of our quotations above expresses it) the crew had "to observe the Law of Pythagoras."
1690.—"Of this (Kitchery or [Kedgeree], q.v.) the European Sailors feed in these parts once or twice a Week, and are forc'd at those times to a Pagan Abstinence from Flesh, which creates in them a perfect Dislike and utter Detestation to those Bannian Days, as they commonly call them."—Ovington, 310, 311.
BANYAN-FIGHT, s. Thus:
1690.—"This Tongue Tempest is termed there a Bannian-Fight, for it never rises to blows or bloodshed."—Ovington, 275. Sir G. Birdwood tells us that this is a phrase still current in Bombay.
BANYAN-TREE, also elliptically Banyan, s. The Indian Fig-Tree (Ficus Indica, or Ficus bengalensis, L.), called in H. baṛ [or baṛgat, the latter the "Bourgade" of Bernier (ed. Constable, p. 309).] The name appears to have been first bestowed popularly on a famous tree of this species growing near [Gombroon] (q.v.), under which the Banyans or Hindu traders settled at that port, had built a little pagoda. So says Tavernier below. This original Banyan-tree is described by P. della Valle (ii. 453), and by Valentijn (v. 202). P. della Valle's account (1622) is extremely interesting, but too long for quotation. He calls it by the Persian name, lūl. The tree still stood, within half a mile of the English factory, in 1758, when it was visited by Ives, who quotes Tickell's verses given below. [Also see [CUBEER BURR].]
c. A.D. 70.—"First and foremost, there is a Fig-tree there (in India) which beareth very small and slender figges. The propertie of this Tree, is to plant and set it selfe without mans helpe. For it spreadeth out with mightie armes, and the lowest water-boughes underneath, do bend so downeward to the very earth, that they touch it againe, and lie upon it: whereby, within one years space they will take fast root in the ground, and put foorth a new Spring round about the Mother-tree: so as these braunches, thus growing, seeme like a traile or border of arbours most curiously and artificially made," &c.—Plinies Nat. Historie, by Philemon Holland, i. 360.
1624.—