The Indian tree, whose branches downward bent,
Take root again, a boundless canopy--
and the Peepul or Pippul (_Ficus Religiosa_) are amongst the finest
trees in this country--or perhaps in the world--and on a very spacious
pleasure ground or park they would present truly magnificent aspects.
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.
The Banyan tree in the Company's Botanic garden, is a fine tree, but it
is of small dimensions compared with those of the trees just
mentioned.[125]
The cocoanut tree has a characteristically Oriental aspect and a natural
grace, but it is not well suited to the ornamental garden or the
princely villa. It is too suggestive of the rudest village scenery, and
perhaps also of utilitarian ideas of mere profit, as every poor man who
has half a dozen cocoanut trees on his ground disposes of the produce in
the bazar.
I would recommend my native friends to confine their clumps of plaintain
trees to the kitchen garden, for though the leaf of the plaintain is a
proud specimen of oriental foliage when it is first opened out to the
sun, it soon gets torn to shreds by the lightest breeze. The tattered
leaves then dry up and the whole of the tree presents the most beggarly
aspect imaginable. The stem is as ragged and untidy as the leaves.
The kitchen garden and the orchard should be in the rear of the house.
The former should not be too visible from the windows and the latter is
on many accounts better at the extremity of the grounds than close to
the house, as we too often find it. A native of high rank should keep as
much out of sight as possible every thing that would remind a visitor
that any portion of the ground was intended rather for pecuniary profit
than the immediate pleasure of the owner. The people of India do not
seem to be sufficiently aware that any sign of parsimony in the
management of a large park or pleasure ground produces in the mind of
the visitor an unfavorable impression of the character of the owner. I
have seen in Calcutta vast mansions of which every little niche and
corner towards the street was let out to very small traders at a few
annas a month. What would the people of England think of an opulent
English Nobleman who should try to squeeze a few pence from the poor by
dividing the street front of his palace into little pigeon-sheds of
petty shops for the retail of petty wares? Oh! Princes of India "reform
this altogether." This sordid saving, this widely published parsimony,
is not only not princely, it is not only not decorous, it is positively
disgusting to every passer-by who himself possesses any right thought or
feeling.
The Natives seem every day more and more inclined to imitate European
fashions, and there are few European fashions, which could be borrowed
by the highest or lowest of the people of this country with a more
humanizing and delightful effect than that attention to the exterior
elegance and neatness of the dwelling-house, and that tasteful garniture
of the contiguous ground, which in England is a taste common to the
prince and the peasant, and which has made that noble country so full of
those beautiful homes which surprize and enchant its foreign visitors.
The climate and soil of this country are peculiarly favorable to the
cultivation of trees and shrubs and flowers; and the garden here is at
no season of the year without its ornaments.
The example of the Horticultural Society of India, and the attractions
of the Company's Botanic Garden ought to have created a more general
taste amongst us for the culture of flowers. Bishop Heber tells us that
the Botanic Garden here reminded hint more of Milton's description of
the Garden of Eden than any other public garden, that he had ever
seen.[126]
There is a Botanic Garden at Serampore. In 1813 it was in charge of Dr.
Roxburgh. Subsequently came the amiable and able Dr. Wallich; then the
venerable Dr. Carey was for a time the Officiating Superintendent. Dr.
Voigt followed and then one of the greatest of our Anglo-Indian
botanists, Dr. Griffiths. After him came Dr. McLelland, who is at this
present time counting the teak trees in the forests of Pegu. He was
succeeded by Dr. Falconer who left this country but a few months ago.
The garden is now in charge of Dr. Thomson who is said to be an
enthusiast in his profession. He explored the region beyond the snowy
range I think with Captain Cunningham, some years ago. With the
exceptions of Voigt and Carey, all who have had charge of the garden at
Serampore have held at the same time the more important appointment of
Superintendent of the Company's Botanic Garden at Garden Beach.
There is a Botanic Garden at Bhagulpore, which owes its origin to Major
Napleton. I have been unable to obtain any information regarding its
present condition. A good Botanic Garden has been already established in
the Punjab, where there is also an Agricultural and Horticultural
Society.
I regret that it should have been deemed necessary to make stupid
pedants of Hindu malees by providing them with a classical nomenclature
for plants. Hindostanee names would have answered the purpose just as
well. The natives make a sad mess of our simplest English names, but
their Greek must be Greek indeed! A _Quarterly Reviewer_ observes that
Miss Mitford has found it difficult to make the maurandias and
alstraemerias and eschxholtzias--the commonest flowers of our modern
garden--look passable even in prose. But what are these, he asks, to the
pollopostemonopetalae and eleutheroromacrostemones of Wachendorf, with
such daily additions as the native name of iztactepotzacuxochitl
icohueyo, or the more classical ponderosity of Erisymum Peroffskyanum.
--like the verbum Graecum
Spermagoraiolekitholakanopolides,
Words that should only be said upon holidays,
When one has nothing else to do.
If these names are unpronounceable even by Europeans, what would the
poor Hindu malee make of them? The pedantry of some of our scientific
Botanists is something marvellous. One would think that a love of
flowers must produce or imply a taste for simplicity and nature in all
things.[127]
As by way of encouragement to the native gardeners--to enable them to
dispose of the floral produce of their gardens at a fair price--the
Horticultural Society has withdrawn from the public the indulgence of
gratuitous supplies of plants, it would be as well if some men of taste
were to instruct these native nursery-men how to lay out their grounds,
(as their fellow-traders do at home,) with some regard to neatness,
cleanliness and order. These flower-merchants, and even the common
_malees_, should also be instructed, I think, how to make up a decent
bouquet, for if it be possible to render the most elegant things in the
creation offensive to the eye of taste, that object is assuredly very
completely effected by these swarthy artists when they arrange, with
such worse than Dutch precision and formality, the ill-selected,
ill-arranged, and tightly bound treasures of the parterre for the
classical vases of their British masters. I am often vexed to observe the
idleness or apathy which suffers such atrocities as these specimens of
Indian taste to disgrace the drawing-rooms of the City of Palaces. This is
quite inexcusable in a family where there are feminine hands for the
truly graceful and congenial task of selecting and arranging the daily
supply of garden decorations. A young lady--"herself a fairer
flower"--is rarely exhibited to a loving eye in a more delightful point of
view than when her delicate and dainty fingers are so employed.
If a lovely woman arranging the nosegays and flower-vases, in her
parlour, is a sweet living picture, a still sweeter sight does she
present to us when she is in the garden itself. Milton thus represents
the fair mother of the fair in the first garden:--
Eve separate he spies.
Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glow'd, oft stooping to support
Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay,
Carnation, purple, azure, or speck'd with gold,
Hung drooping unsustain'd; them she upstays
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
Among thick woven arborets, and flowers
Imborder'd on each bank, the hand of Eve[128]
_Paradise Lost. Book IX_.
Chaucer (in "The Knight's Tale,") describes Emily in her garden as
fairer to be seen
Than is the lily on his stalkie green;
And Dryden, in his modernized version of the old poet, says,
At every turn she made a little stand,
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
To draw the rose.