266 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
the latter very beautiful, from its bright green and feathery foliage: 
Close to the river the crops appeared to consist of Sugar-cane, 
Hemp, Tobacco, Sesamum, Cotton, Coffee, Rice, and Indigo, with 
scattered Oranges, Lemons, Bananas, Mulberries, Ceratonia Si- 
liqua, and a few other trees, but the fruits are chiefly confined to 
the walled gardens of the richer Egyptians. The Sugar-cane 
appeared a very small kind, much smaller than the commonly 
cultivated one, which is the Bourbon, I believe, such as you 
have at Kew. Further from the town and river, the great allu- 
vial deposit, which alone is fertile of all Egypt (except the Oases), 
. is rudely cultivated with various Leguminose, just sprouting. 
Holcus Sorghum, Lettuce, Flax, Poppy, Cumin, and Coriander 
produce at this season a rich carpet of the liveliest green. 
Cairo stands half on the Desert, and half on the alluvial deposit, 
so that you may enter it amongst gardens, avenues, and richly- 
cultivated fields, and step from the gates on the other side into 
utter sterility. On the east portion you see no one but a solitary 
Arab on his Dromedary, or occasionally a long caravan of laden 
camels, breaking the horizon of rock and sand; whilst the river- 
ward suburbs are crowded with laden asses, camels, men, women, 
and children, all busy carrying or planting and sowing, ploughing 
or irrigating, so densely packed, dirty, and disorderly, that it 1s 
impossible to conceive by what governing power they can be made 
profitable servants and subjects. | 
The Rhoda Gardens are situated on a long island which divides 
the Nile at Cairo, and upon the end of which the celebrated Nilo- 
meter is placed. The first thing which strikes you on entering 
them is the want of Exotics. All Eastern gardens are, YOU - 
know, mere collections of the common and more ornamental 
native plants, arranged in straight lines to suit an Eastern taste, 
and crowded together to produce shade and masses of green to 
rest the eye upon; hence the Rhoda Gardens are disappointing at 
first sight, for they present neither the extreme variety of our 
English botanic or pleasure gardens, nor the perfectly artificial and 
formal luxuriance of Shoobra. Rhoda is, however, and = 
truly the Dropmore of Egypt, and it is quite marvellous what has | 
