34 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 



those of India should excel those of Persia ; which we 

 do not find by comparing the accounts of those 

 countries : but Assyria, Media and Persia have been 

 ever esteemed, and will be ever found the true regions 

 of the best and noblest fruits in the world. The reason 

 of it can be no other, than that of an excellent and 

 proper soil, being there extended under the best 

 climate for the production of all sorts of the best 

 fruits ; which seems to be from about twenty-five, to 

 about thirty-five degrees of latitude. Now the regions 

 under this climate in the present Persian empire 

 (which comprehends most of the other two, called 

 anciently Assyria and Media) are composed of many 

 provinces full of great and fertile plains, bounded by 

 high mountains, especially to the north : watered 

 naturally with many rivers, and those by art and labour 

 derived into many more and smaller stream -., which all 

 conspire to form a country in all circum stances, the 

 most proper and agreeable for production of the best 

 and noblest fruits. Whereas if we survey the regions 

 of the western world, lying in the same latitude 

 between twenty-five and thirty-five degrees, we shall 

 find them extended either over the Mediterranean Sea, 

 the Ocean, or the sandy barren countries of Africa ; 

 and that no part of the continent of Europe lies so 



