CHAPTER 5.
Marriages of Trees--The Tank and the Plantain--Meteors--Rainbows.
Before quitting Jubbulpore, to which place I thought it very unlikely that I should ever return, I went to visit the groves in the vicinity, which, at the time I held the civil charge of the district in 1828, had been planted by different native gentlemen upon lands assigned to them rent-free for the purpose, on condition that the holder should bind himself to plant trees at the rate of twenty-five to the acre, and keep them up at that rate; and that for each grove, however small, he should build and keep in repair a well, lined with masonry, for watering the trees, and for the benefit of travellers.[1] Some of these groves had already begun to yield fruit, and all had been _married_.

Among the Hindoos, neither the man who plants a grove, nor his wife, can taste of the fruit till he has _married_ one of the mango-trees to some other tree (commonly the tamarind-tree) that grows near it in the same grove.

The proprietor of one of these groves that stands between the cantonment and the town, old Barjor Singh, had spent so much in planting and watering the grove, and building walls and wells of _pucka_[2] masonry, that he could not afford to defray the expense of the marriage ceremonies till one of the trees, which was older than the rest when planted, began to bear fruit in 1833, and poor old Barjor Singh and his wife were in great distress that they dared not taste of the fruit whose flavour was so much prized by their children.

They began to think that they had neglected a serious duty, and might, in consequence, be taken off before another season could come round.

They therefore sold all their silver and gold ornaments, and borrowed all they could; and before the next season the grove was married with all due pomp and ceremony, to the great delight of the old pair, who tasted of the fruit in June 1834.
The larger the number of the Brahmans that are fed on the occasion of the marriage, the greater the glory of the proprietor of the grove; and when I asked old Barjor Singh, during my visit to his grove, how many he had feasted, he said, with a heavy sigh, that he had been able to feast only one hundred and fifty.