An enormous banyan tree stands on the lawn at Barrackpore. I
should be afraid to say how much ground it covers; perhaps nearly
an acre, for these trees throw down aerial suckers which form into
fresh trunks, and so spread indefinitely. Lady Lansdowne thought
she would have a bamboo house built in this great banyan tree for
her little daughter, the same little girl for whom I had built the
snow-hut at Ottawa, for she happens to be my god-daughter. It was
to be a sort of "Swiss Family Robinson" tree-house, infinitely
superior to the house on the tree-tops of Kensington Gardens,
which Wendy destined for Peter Pan. The house was duly built, with
bamboo staircases, and little fenced-off bamboo platforms fitted
with seats and tables, at different levels up the tree. The Swiss
Family Robinson would have gone mad with jealousy at seeing such a
desirable aerial abode, so immeasurably preferable to their own,
and even Wendy might have felt a mild pang of envy. When the house
was completed, one of the Aides-de-Camp inspected it and found a
snake hanging by its tail from a branch right over one of the
little aerial platforms.
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