s for
extending it.

I may here be permitted to introduce as something germane to the
matter of the foregoing chapter a recollection of Jubbulpore,
although we are now far past that locality.

My tents are pitched where they have often been before, on the verge
of a very large and beautiful tank in a fine grove of mango-trees,
and close to a handsome temple. There are more handsome temples and
buildings for accommodation on the other side of the tank, but they
are gone sadly out of repair. The bank all round this noble tank is
beautifully ornamented by fine banyan and pipal trees, between which
and the water's edge intervene numerous clusters of the graceful
bamboo. These works were formed about eighty years ago by a
respectable agricultural capitalist who resided at this place, and
died about twenty years after they were completed. No relation of his
can now be found in the district, and not one in a thousand of those
who drink of the water or eat of the fruit knows to whom he is
indebted. There are round the place some beautiful 'baolis', or large
wells with flights of stone steps from the top to the water's edge,
imbedded in clusters of beautiful trees. They were formed about the
same time for the use of the public by men whose grandchildren have
descended to the grade of cultivators of the soil, or belted
attendants upon the present native collectors, without the means of
repairing any of the injury which time is inflicting upon these
magnificent works. Three or four young pipal-trees have begun to
spread their delicate branches and pale green leaves rustling in the
breeze from the dome of this fine temple; which these infant
Herculeses hold in their deadly grasp and doom to inevitable
destruction. Pigeons deposit the seeds of the pipal-tree, on which
they chiefly feed, in the crevices of buildings.

No Hindoo dares, and no Christian or Muhammadan will condescend, to
lop off the heads of these young trees, and if they did, it would
only put off the evil and inevitable day; for such are the vital
powers of their roots, when they have once penetrated deeply into a
building, that they will send out their branches again, cut them off
as often as you may, and carry on their internal attack with
undiminished vigour.[1] No wonder that superstition should have
consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to the gods.
The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb, all those works
which man is most proud to