10 pPant Tsore, Tsege^/, cmi. byric/. 



produced Apples of gold ; and in the early days of Christendom the 

 poets of the West dreamt of a land in the East (the true Paradise 

 of Adam and Eve, as they believed) in which dwelt in a Palm-tree 

 the golden-breasted Phoenix, — the bird of the sun, which was 

 thought to abide a hundred years in this Elysium of the Arabian 

 deserts, and then to appear in the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, 

 fall upon the blazing altar, and, pouring forth a melodious song from 

 or through the orifices of its feathers (which thus formed a thousand 

 organ-pipes), cremate itself, only to rise again from its smoking 

 ashes, and fly back to its home in the Palm-tree of the earthly 

 Paradise. The Russians tell of a terrestrial Paradise to be sought 

 for on the island of Bujan, where grows the vast Oak tree, amidst 

 whose majestic branches the sun nestles to sleep every evening, 

 and from whose summit he rises every morning. 



The Hindu religion shadows forth an Elysium on Mount 

 Meru, on the confines of Cashmere and Thibet. The garden of 

 the great Indian god Indra is a spot of unparalleled beauty. Here 

 are to be found an umbrageous grove or wood, where the gods 

 delight to take their ease ; cooling fountains and rivulets ; an en- 

 chanting flower-garden, luminous flowers, immortalising fruits, 

 and brilliantly-plumed birds, whose melody charms the gods them- 

 selves. In this Paradise are fine trees, which were the first things 

 that appeared- above the surface of the troubled waters at the 

 beginning of the creation ; from these trees drop the immortalising 

 ambrosia. The principal tree is the Pdrijdta, the flower of which 

 preserves its perfume all the year round, combines in its petals 

 every odour and every flavour, presents to each his favorite colour 

 and most-esteemed perfume, and procures happiness for those who 

 ask it. But beyond this, it is a token of virtue, losing its freshness 

 in the hands of the wicked, but preserving it with the just and 

 honourable. This wondrous flower will also serve as a torch by 

 night, and will emit the most enchanting sounds, producing the 

 sweetest and most varied melody; it assuages hunger and thirst, 

 cures diseases, and remedies the ravages of old age. 



The Paradise of Mahomet is situated in the seventh heaven. In 

 the centre of it stands the marvellous tree called Tooha,'^' which is so 

 large that a man mounted on the fleetest horse could not ride 

 round its branches in one hundred years. This tree not only 

 affords the most grateful shade over the whole extent of the 

 Mussulman Paradise ; but its boughs are laden with delicious 

 fruits of a size and taste unknown to mortals, and moreover bend 

 themselves at the wish of the inhabitants of this abode of bliss, 

 to enable them to partake of these delicacies without any trouble. 

 The Koran often speaks of the rivers of Paradise as adding greatly 



* The name of " Toobar applied to this tree, originated in a misunderstanding of 

 the words Tooba lahufri, "it is well with them," or "blessedness awaits them," in 

 Koran xiii., 28. Some cooimenlators took Tooba for the name of a tree. 



