Dr. Nozupen’s Account of the Banyan-Tree. 131
fact, in the natural history of the tree, and most carefully set forth by Theophrastus, is not adverted to by Strabo.
I have hinted that, in some particulars, the Corypha umbraculifera, or Great Fan Palm, may have been confounded with the Ficus Indica, or Banyan. In a passage of Diodorus Siculus, where a large kind of Indian tree is spoken of, the Fan Palm seems to have been intended by the author. It is in the seventeenth book of his History, where the exploits of Alex- ander are related :* “ The king,” he says, “ having with his army passed “ the river, proceeded through a country extremely fertile. For it pro- «« duced different species of trees, of uncommon size, some having a height «« of seventy cubits, and such thickness in the stem, that four men could
- « not fathom it, and making a shade of three acres.” Neither the height
(about one hundred and twenty feet), nor the circumference of the stem (about twenty-four feet), nor the extent of shadow (about three hundred feet), can be reconciled with particulars, which have before been adduced as characteristic of the Banyan-tree.
The Banyan-tree, however, is undoubtedly alluded to in the following passage of Arrian. It is in that portion of his works, which is entitled Indian History. He is speaking of the Indian sophists, the wise men, or Fakirs, of ancient India, and continues thus:t ‘ These sophists go naked,
- and live in the open air, in winter, exposed to the sun; and in the
“ summer, when the sun is overpowering, they retire to meadows, and ‘«« marshy places, under large trees, whose shade, Nearchus says, extends to
- « five acres in a circle: and ten thousand men may be sheltered under one
“ tree; of such astonishing dimensions are those trees.” From the words of the original it would seem, that the five acres (or five hundred feet) mentioned, are to be taken for the radius of the circle, which would for the circumference give nearly the same measure, that, according to Strabo,
- Biblioth. Histor. Lib. XVII. T. II. p. 230. lin. 73. ed. Wessel. Autos 0: wet& Tis Juvapsws
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