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Opposite the spacious mission grounds the worshippers were gathering beneath two gnarled banian-trees, giant-like in height and spread. Behind them a long hedge of bananas bordered the cocoanut plantation of the church, and across the narrow road rose the chapel, the priests' residence and the nuns' house, with several school buildings now empty because of the French anti-clerical law.
"The vendetta between valleys called umuhuke, or the Vengeance of the Oven, thus wiped out the people of Oi," commented Père Olivier. "The skulls were kept in banian-trees, or in the houses. Frère Fesal started the mission here and built that little church. There were plenty of people to work among. But now, after thirty years I have been here, they are nearly finished.
In clearing the forest lands for coffee planting, a most reckless waste was practiced in Ceylon. Magnificent groves of valuable wood were cut down and ruthlessly burned to ashes, among which were many of the precious cabinet woods so highly prized all over the world. Among others were some grand banian-trees, as we were told, which had a hundred great stems and a thousand lesser ones.
These are works of the greatest and most refined beauty: sometimes panels of thin marble, each pierced with a different pattern, are fitted into a framework prepared for their reception; at others we meet with window-heads where upon a background of twining stems and leaves there grow up palms or banian-trees, their lithe branches and leaves wreathed into lines of admirable grace, and every part standing out, owing to the fine piercings of the marble, as distinctly as a tree of Jesse on a painted window in a Gothic cathedral.
It lay before us, a long and narrow stretch of sand behind a foaming and heavy surf; beyond, a few scattered wooden buildings among palm and banian-trees, and above, the ribbed gaunt mountains shutting in a deep and gloomy ravine. It was a lonely, beautiful place, ominous, melancholy, yet majestic. "Bloody Hiva-oa," this island was called.
The branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees.
The branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees.
Not all sunny garden flowers become banian-trees by the falling of the walls. Some of them are crushed beneath the ruins, and never send any more color or fragrance into the world." "The garden flower had happiness before the walls fell," said Polly. "It is happiness I want."
To the right and left of them the shadowy forms of giant banian-trees loomed and slid past them as they had done for the past four hours, and for ten paces ahead they could see the faintly outlined shape of the trunk road that they followed. The rest was silence and a pall of blackness obscuring everything.
The branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees.
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