There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.”
The banian tree, or Indian fig, is perhaps the most beautiful of nature’s productions in that genial climate, where her luxuriance is displayed with the greatest profusion and variety. Some of these trees, as they are continually increasing, and, contrary to most other things in animal and vegetable life, seem to be exempted from decay, grow to an amazing size. Every branch projecting from the main body throws out its own roots, at first in small tender fibres, several yards from the ground; these continually grow thicker till they reach the surface; and there striking in, they increase to large trunks, and become parent trees, shooting out new branches from the top; these at length suspend their roots, which, swelling into trunks, produce other branches: thus continuing in a state of progression as long as the earth, the first parent of them all, contributes her sustenance. The Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree; they view it as an emblem of the Deity, from its long duration, outstretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence; they almost pay it divine honors, and
“Find a fane in every sacred grove.”
Near these trees the most esteemed pagodas are generally erected; under their shade the brahmins spend their lives in religious solitude; and the natives of all casts and tribes are fond of recreating in the cool recesses, beautiful walks, and lovely vistas of this umbrageous canopy, impervious to the hottest beams of a tropical sun.
A description of a tree in the island of Java, called the Upas, or Poison Tree, is given to the public by a surgeon belonging to the Dutch East India Company, of the name of Foersch, who was stationed at Batavia, in the year 1774. Surprising its this account may be, it is accompanied by so many public facts, and names of persons and places, that it is somewhat difficult to conceive it fabulous. The Upas grows about seven leagues from Batavia, in a plain surrounded by rocky mountains, the whole of which plain, containing a circle of ten or twelve miles round the tree, is totally barren. Nothing that breathes or vegetates can live within its influence. The bird that flies over it drops down dead. The beast that wanders into it expires. The whole dreadful area is covered with sand, over which lie scattered loose flints and whitened bones, Thus,
“Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath,
Fell Upas sits!”
This tree may be called the emperor’s great military magazine. In a solution of the poisonous gum which exudes from it, his arrows and offensive weapons are dipped; the procuring, therefore, of this poisonous gum, is a matter of as much attention as of difficulty. Criminals are only employed in this dreadful service. Of these, several every year are sent with a promise of pardon and reward if they procure it. Hooded in leather cases, with glass eyelet-holes, and secured as much as possible from the foul effluvia of the air they are to breathe, they undertake this melancholy journey, travelling always with the wind. About one in ten escapes, and brings away a little box of this direful commodity!