Colonel Sykes alludes to a Banyan at the village of Nikow in Poonah with
68 stems descending from and supporting the branches. This tree is said
to be capable of affording shelter to 20,000 men. It is a tree of this
sort which Milton so well describes.
The fig tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day, to Indians known
In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, a pillared shade,
High over arched, and echoing walks between
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop holes cut through the thickest shade those leaves,
They gathered, broad as Amazonian taige;
And with what skill they had together sewed,
To gird their waste.
Milton is mistaken as to the size of the leaves of this tree, though he
has given its general character with great exactness.[123]
A remarkable banyan or buri tree, near Manjee, twenty miles west of
Patna, is 375 inches in diameter, the circumference of its shadow at
noon measuring 1116 feet. It has sixty stems, or dropped branches that
have taken root. Under this tree once sat a naked fakir who had occupied
that situation for 25 years; but he did not continue there the whole
year, for his vow obliged him to be during the four cold months up to
his neck in the water of the Ganges![124]
It is said that there is a banyan tree near Gombroon on the Persian
gulf, computed to cover nearly 1,700 yards.
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