A GARDEN OF DELIGHT 177 



walk below the high southern wall of the 

 kitchen garden, runs a space of fruit trees, with 

 a delightful broad mixed border melting into 

 it in front. Here are great Rose bushes of all 

 sorts and kinds, the old pink China attaining 

 an immense size ; plantations I can use no 

 other term of Hollyhocks, the fig-leaved 

 single kind growing with fine effect, here a 

 mass of sulphur, there of darkest maroon ; 

 and other herbaceous and annual flowers of 

 every imaginable variety. On the left, sunk in 

 the softest green turf, a line of five or six 

 small round ponds, through which a clear 

 little stream of our soft, brown bog water 

 flows gently. And in each pond Water Lilies ! 

 Water Lilies from every quarter of the globe. 

 Water Lilies of every shade, beginning with 

 purest white of our English Nymphcea alba in 

 the big pond at the head ; and running 

 through lemon, yellow, and pink to crimson. 

 Even the rare blue Lily N. scutifolia, from the 

 Soudan, grows here in the open air ; but it 

 is obliged to have its own tanks under the 

 terrace wall, with hot-water pipes running 



M 



