JUNE 141 



after meals. It is believed that the oldest rose-bush in 

 existence is one trained to the side of the cathedral in Hilder- 

 sheim, Germany. The root is buried in the crypt below the 

 choir; the stem is a foot thick, and half-a-dozen branches 

 nearly cover the east side. Its age is unknown, but docu- 

 ments exist proving that a bishop nearly a thousand years 

 ago had it protected by a stone roof, which is still extant. 

 Many and varied are the uses to which the rose is put. The 

 Orientals make beads of a beautiful black by pounding rose- 

 leaves in an iron mortar, which gives the paste its colour, 

 when it is moulded and dried and perforated with a red-hot 

 wire, and finally perfumed with attar. Attar of roses has 

 been manufactured for a very long time in India, and the 

 manner in which it was first discovered is told as follows : 

 Noorjeehan Begum, the favourite wife of Jeehan-Geer, was 

 one day walking in her garden, through which ran a canal of 

 rose-water, when she remarked some oily particles floating on 

 the surface. These, at her command, were collected, and 

 their aroma found to be so delicious, that means were devised 

 to produce the precious oil in a regular way. Well does the 

 perfumer turn the 



" Sweet odour which doth in it live '* 



as Shakespeare says, singing of the rose to account ; for 

 he compels the lovely blossom to yield its aroma to him in 

 every form, obtaining from it essential oil, a distilled water, 

 a pomade. Even its withered petals are rendered available 

 to form the ground of satchet powder, and the fragrant 

 pot-pourri, so dearly loved and so exquisitely made by our 

 grandmothers. 



Roses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries included 

 the old Provence and the old-fashioned despised cabbage 



