Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/367

Rh quently notice a banyan-tree, from the centre of whose trunk the foliage of the palmyra rises in a leafy crown. This rather singular phenomenon is caused by seeds of the banyan dropped by birds or otherwise upon the moist summit of the palmyra, there germinating and sending down their roots; these roots, reaching the ground, fix themselves in the earth and grow until they almost or altogether envelop the trunk of the palmyra, leaving only its head exposed above the banyan.

The chief value of the tree is its sap, which, like that of the cocoanut-tree, is obtained by cutting the sheaths which contain the flowerbuds. To do this would be no easy task to one who, for the first time, was led to the foot of a naked trunk rising forty or more feet from the ground without a single branch, and too large to be encircled by the arms; but to the Shanar, accustomed to climb them from his boyhood, it is a trifle. Indeed, this is the employment of his life. At four o'clock in the morning he sets out for his day's work with a girdle attached to his waist, from which is suspended one or more earthen pots for the sap, and a sheath containing a large knife. A piece of cloth around his middle is his whole clothing. Tying a small Rh