fresh. I have seen it flourish in the centre
of a hollow tree of a very different species, which however still
retained its verdure, its branches encompassing those of the adventitious
plant whilst its decayed trunk enclosed the stem, which was visible, at
interstices, from nearly the level of the plain on which they grew. This
in truth appeared so striking a curiosity that I have often repaired to
the spot to contemplate the singularity of it. How the seed from which it
is produced happens to occupy stations seemingly so unnatural is not
easily determined. Some have imagined the berries carried thither by the
wind, and others, with more appearance of truth, by the birds; which,
cleansing their bills where they light, or attempt to light, leave, in
those places, the seeds adhering by the viscous matter which surrounds
them. However this be, the jawi-jawi, growing on buildings without earth
or water, and deriving from the genial atmosphere its principle of
nourishment, proves in its increasing growth highly destructive to the
fabric where it is harboured; for the fibrous roots, which are at first
extremely fine, penetrate common cements, and, overcoming as their size
enlarges the most powerful resistance, split, with the force of the
mechanic wedge, the most substantial brickwork. When the consistence is
such as not to admit the insinuation of the fibres the root extends
itself along the outside, and to an extraordinary length, bearing not
unfrequently to the stem the proportion of eight to one when young. I
have measured the former sixty inches, when the latter, to the extremity
of the leaf, which took up a third part, was no more than eight inches. I
have also seen it wave its boughs at the apparent height of two hundred
feet, of which the roots, if we may term them such, occupied at least one
hundred; forming by their close combination the appearance of a venerable
gothic pillar. It stood near the plains of Krakap, but, like other
monuments of antiquity, it had its period of existence, and is now no
more.

(*Footnote. The following is an account of the dimensions of a remarkable
banyan or burr tree, near Manjee, twenty miles west of Patna in Bengal.
Diameter 363 to 375 feet. Circumference of shadow at noon 1116 feet.
Circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet.
Under this tree sat a naked Fakir, who had occupied that situation for
twenty-five years; but he did not continue there the whole yea