Captain J. S. F. Mackenzie, some years ago, contributed a paper to the _Indian Antiquary_ on Tree and Serpent Worship in Mysore. He said that round about Bangalose, more especially the Lal Bagh and Petta--as the native town is called--three or more stones are to be found together, having representations of serpents carved upon them. These stones are erected always under the sacred fig tree, by some pious persons, whose means and piety determine the care and finish with which they are executed. Judging from the number of the stones, the worship of the serpent appears to be more prevalent in the Bungalose district than in other parts of the province. No priest is ever in charge of them. There is no objection to men doing so, but, from the custom or from some reason--partly because the serpent is supposed to confer fertility on barren women--the worshipping of the stones, which takes place during the Gauri feast, is confined to women of all Hindu classes and creeds. The stones, when properly erected, ought to be on a built-up stone platform facing the rising sun, and under the shade of two _peepul_ (_ficus religiosa_) trees--a male and female growing together, and wedded by ceremonies in every respect the same as in the case of human beings--close by, and growing in the same platform a _nimb_ (_margosa_) and _bipatra_ (a kind of wood-apple), which are supposed to be living witnesses of the marriage. The expense of performing the marriage ceremony is too heavy for ordinary persons, and so we generally find only one _peepul_ and a _nimb_ on the platform. By the common people these two are supposed to represent man and wife. To speak at length of the Palm tree would require a volume--and that a bulky one--rather than a passing notice in a treatise of the most limited dimensions. So much does man owe to this tree in the east, that the inhabitants of those countries where it flourishes can conceive of no land possessing any attraction where it does not exist. An Arab woman lately visiting England once expressed herself to this effect after being shewn everything wonderful that the country had possessed, all in her estimation faded into comparative worthlessness when, in answer to her enquiry, she was told that no palm trees grew there. No tree, in consequence, has been so highly prized or been made so much of. To say that men have been simply grateful for it, or that they have reverenced it, is to stop short of the mark, they have actually deified it and rendered to it divine honours. "A conventional form of the palm tree occurs on the Nineveh tablets, surrounded by an enclosure of _palmettes_, and attended by winged deities, or ministers holding the _pine-cone_ symbol of life, which in Assyrian sculpture takes the place of the _crux-ansata_ in the hands of the Egyptian deities.