ON THE HOSE. 179 



Forster says, " the rose of Kashmire for its brilliancy and de- 

 licacy of odour has long been proverbial in the East." 



41 Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, 

 With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave." 



Moore. 



The oriental poetry abounds in flowery allusions to this plant. 



"You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flow- 

 ers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart, 

 for more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose." 



•' Oh ! sooner shall the rose of May 

 Mistake her own sweet nightingale, 



And to some meaner minstrel's lay- 

 Open her bosom's glowing veil." 



Moore. 



The Ghebers say, that when Abraham, their great prophet was 

 thrown into the fire by the order of Nimrod, the flame turned 

 instantly into " a bed of roses, where the child sweetly reposed." 



According to the heathen mythology, Pagoda Siri one of the 

 wives of Wistnou, was found in a rose. 



The island of Rhodes owes its name to the prodigious quantity 

 of roses with which it abounds. 



Ludivico Verthema, who travelled into the east in the year 

 1503, observes, that Taessa was particularly celebrated for roses, 

 and that he saw a great quantity of these flowers at Calicut, both 

 red, white, and yellow ; and Sir William Ousely tells us, in his 

 work on Persia, that when he entered the flower garden belong- 

 ing to the governor of a castle near Fassa, he was overwhelm- 

 ed with roses. In Persia, wine and other liquors are brought to 

 table with a rose in the bottle, instead of a stopple or cork. 



Jackson says, that the roses of the Jinan Nile, or the garden 

 of the Nile, attached to the emperor of Morocco's palace, are un- 

 equalled, and that mattrasses are made of their petals for the men 

 of rank to recline upon ; and wo read in Father Catrou's " His- 

 toire de Mogol," that the celebrated princess Nourmahal caused 

 an entire canal to be filled with rose water, upon which she took 

 her pleasure with the Great Mogul. 



The heat of the sun disengaging the water from the essential 

 oil of the rose, this substance was remarked floating on the sur- 

 face of the canal ; and it was thus that the otto of roses was first 

 discovered. 



