74 ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



stood different palaces and pavilions decorated with 

 works of gold, paintings, and furniture all in silk. There, 

 in the little canals, one saw running streams of wine, milk, 

 honey, and very clear water. There were lodged young 

 girls, perfectly beautiful and charming, who were in- 

 structed to play on all sorts of musical instruments ; one 

 saw them perpetually walking ih these gardens and 

 palaces." 



Another description of a similar garden appears in the 

 so-called " Travels " of Sir John Mandeville, a book first 

 written in French and then translated into English at 

 the close of the fifteenth century. The location of the 

 garden he mentions was said to be the island of Milstrak. 

 An Oriental " That isle is very rich. There was dwelling not 



g&rden 



described long since a rich man, named Gatholonabes, who was 

 Mandsviiie. full of tricks and subtle deceits. He had a fair and 

 strong castle in a mountain, so strong and noble that 

 no man could devise a fairer or a stronger. And he had 

 caused the mountain to be walled about with a strong 

 and fair wall, within which walls he had the fairest 

 garden that might be imagined ; and therein were trees 

 bearing all manner of fruits, all kinds of herbs of virtue 

 and of good smell, and all other herbs also that bear 

 fair flowers. And he had also in that garden many fair 

 wells, and by them he had many fair halls and fair 

 chambers, painted all with gold and azure, representing 

 many divers things and many divers stories. There 



