Page:Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 1.djvu/164

128 Dr. Norxpen’s Account of the Banyan-Tree. Pliny appears to great disadvantage, by the side of such an author as Theophrastus. The information which he collected, upon almost every subject, though vast in quantity, loses much of its value, from the precipi- tation with which it was taken up. His inordinate desire of reading every thing that could be read, which is admirably described by his nephew,* and the ambition of making extracts from a multitude of authors, left him no time for digesting what he had thus heaped together, much less for exer- cising any judgment, or discrimination. His extreme parsimony of time would naturally induce hurry, in making his extracts, which proved another source of inaccuracy. It is, for these reasons, not to be wondered at, that the correctness of Pliny’s statements should, on many occasions, be subject to doubt, and that his authority should be brought into question. It is probable, also, that he may have mixed with the account of Theo- phrastus some other narration, less accurate ; such, for instance, as might be found in those historical writers, who had described Alexander’s expedition. It has been observed, that Theophrastus likens the size of the fruit of the Banyan to a sort of legume, which he calls é¢@w9cc, and it has been said that this was either a kind of large pea, or some variety of bean. Pliny uses the expression faba, bean, as synonymous with the term 2¢:@w9e¢: and we shall perhaps be near the truth, if we suppose, that what both authors had in view, was some kind of kidney-bean, approaching the size of a hazel-nut, stated by modern botanists to be about the dimension of the fruit of the Banyan. aba, in classical Latin, does not signify the common garden-bean, but seems to be a general term for both the phaselus and the phaseolus ; which latter is the kidney-bean, the former the garden bean.

Theophrastus and Pliny are the two authors who have spoken of the tree, as naturalists. Those which are now to be quoted, merely give the popular accounts, such as were to be met with in the histories, and memoirs of Alexander’s exploits. Of this character is a passage in Quintus Curtius, which undoubtedly refers to the Ficus Indica :t “* There were woods,” (in

+ Lib. 1X. c.1, p.193. Vol. II. ed. Bip. Hinc Poro amneque superato, ad interiora Indie processit. Silve erant prope in immensum spatium diffuse, procerisque et in eximiam altitudinem editis arboribus umbrose : plerique rami instar ingentium stipitum flexi in humum, rursus, qua se curvaverant, erigebantur adeo, ut species esset non rami resurgentis, sed arboris ex sud radice generate.
 * Plin. Epist. III. 5.