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the Arabs, A. D. 980. When Saladin took Jerusalem in 
1128 he would not enter the shrine of the temple, then 
converted into a church by the Christians, until the walls 
had been thoroughly washed and purified by Rose water. 
At the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. in 1453, 
the Church of Sophia was washed with Rose water in a 
similar manner before being converted into a Mosque. 
In Father Catron’s history of the Mogul Empire we read 
that the celebrated Princess Nourmahal filled an entire 
canal with Rose water, upon which she was in the habit 
of sailing with the Great Mogul. Many are the poetical 
and legendary allusions of the Rose in every country in 
which it is known. In the Eastern country the flower 
has always been the favorite of the poets, and numerous 
are the notices of it to be found in their works. ._In our 
own literature the Rose has been the poet’s frequent 
theme. Byron, in his ‘‘ Bride of Abydos,” tells of a 
miraculous ever-blooming Rese that sprang from the 
virgin grove of Zuleike: 
One spot exists, which, ever blooms, 
Even in that deadly grove— 
A singie Rose is shedding there 
Its lonely lustre; meek and pale 
It looks, as planted by Despair. 
So white, so faint—the slightest gale 
Might whiri the leaves on high; 
And yet though storms and blight assaii, 
And hands more rude than Wintry sky. 
May wring it from the stem—in vain, 
To-morrow sees it bloom again. 
Various and beautiful are the legends that account for 
the many colors of the Rose. There is a tradition that 
on the ejectment of Eve from Paradise the Roses, which 
_ were previously all white, blushed red at the shame of 
our first mother’s fall. The origin of the blush imparted 
