DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF FLOWERING SHRUBS. 441 



birds ; the Rose is supposed to burst forth from its bud at 

 the song of the nightingale. 



" A festival is held in Persia, called the Feast of Roses, 

 which lasts the whole time they are in bloom. 



'And all is ecstasy, for now 

 The valley holds its Feast of Roses ; 

 That joyous time when pleasures pour 

 Profusely round, and in their shower 

 Hearts open, like the season's Rose, — 

 The flowret of a hundred leaves, 

 Expanding while the dew-fall flows, 

 And every leaf its oalm receives ! ' 



" ' Persia is the very land of Roses. — " On my first en- 

 tering this bower of fairy land," says Sir Robert Kerr 

 Porter; speaking of the garden of one of the royal palaces 

 of Persia, "I was struck Avith the appearance of two Rose- 

 trees, full fourteen feet high, laden with thousands of 

 flowers, in every degree of expansion, and of a bloom and 

 delicacy of sceut that imbued the whole atmosphere with 

 exquisite perfume. Indeed, I believe that in no country 

 in the world does the Rose grow in such perfection as in 

 Persia ; in no country is it so cultivated and prized by the 

 natives. Their gardens and courts are crowded by its 

 plants, their rooms ornamented with vases filled with its 

 gathered bunches, and every bath strewed with the full- 

 blown flowers, plucked with the ever-replenished stems. 

 * * * * But in this dehcious garden of Negaaristan, 

 the eye and tlie smell are not the only senses regaled by 

 the presence of the Rose. The ear is enchanted by the 

 wild and beautiful notes of multitudes of nightingales, 

 whose warblings seem to increase in melody and softness 

 with the unfolding of their favorite flowers. Here, indeed, 

 the stranger is more powerfully reminded that he is in the 

 genuine country of the nightingale and the Rose." — 

 {Persia in Miniature^ vol. iii.) 



"Sir William Ouseley, accompanied his brother, the am- 

 bassador, on a visit to a man of high rank at Teheran; 

 19* 



