1 82 The Gardens of the Sun. [ch. vm. 



the driblets of bloom kept up by them nearly all the year 

 round. 



Still the beauty of tropical gardens is lovely of its 

 kind. You have, or may have, all the tropical treasures 

 of Kew — palms, ferns, and orchids — around you in the 

 open air ; but all this is as the beauty of a lovely woman, 

 jaded by over-enjoyment, the whirl of a whole season's 

 gaieties ! There is elegance of form, and charm of 

 colour, all the refinement of cultured beauty, sure enough. 

 Victoria water-lilies, and dainty nymphaeas in open air 

 pools, the flesh-tinted blooms, and umbrageous leafage 

 of the sacred lotus also ; the noble amherstia, with its 

 pendants of crimson and gold, — groves of feathery-leaved 

 palms — all this, and very much more, is common ; but 

 it is astonishing how soon one tires of this plethora of 

 floral charms, and how eager becomes the longing to 

 sniff the homely fragrance of pinks and wall-flowers ; to 

 stoop for a violet from a mossy hedge-bank, or a snow- 

 drop even from a cotter's garden. Indeed, there is no 

 gainsaying the fact, as has been pointed out by Wallace 

 and others, that the most lovely and satisfying, the 

 most sociable of all flowers, are those of temperate 

 climates. 



