EASTERN GARDENS. 101 



house. Cultivation blots out some of the original characters 

 of nature, and checks the free development of the several parts 

 of the exotic organization. 



The physiognomy and arrangement of plants and their con- 

 trasted apposition must not he regarded as mere objects of 

 natural science, or incitements toward its cultivation ; for the 

 attention devoted to the physiognomy of plants is likewise of 

 the greatest importance with reference to the art of landscape 

 gardening. I will not yield to the temptation here held out 

 to me of entering more fully into this subject, merely limiting 

 myself to a reference to the beginning of this section of the 

 present work, where, as we found occasion to praise the more 

 frequent manifestation of a profound sentiment of nature no- 

 ticed among nations of Semitic, Indian, and Iranian descent, 

 so also we find from history that the cultivation of parks orig- 

 inated in Central and Southern Asia. Semiramis caused gar- 

 dens to be laid out at the foot of the Mountain Bagistanos, 

 which have been described by Diodorus,* and whose fame in- 

 duced Alexander, on his progress from Kelone to the horse 

 pastures of Nysaea, to deviate from the direct road. The 

 parks of the Persian kings were adorned with cypresses, whose * 

 obelisk-like forms resembled the flame of fire, and were, on 

 that account, after the appearance of Zerduscht (Zoroaster), 

 first planted by Gushtasp around the sacred precincts of the 

 Temple of Fire. It is thus that the form of the tree itself 

 has led to the myth of the origin of the cypress in Paradise. f 



* Diodor., ii., 13. He, however, ascribes to the celebrated gardens of 

 Semiramis a circumference of only twelve stadia. The district near the 

 pass of Bagistanos is still called the " bow or circuit of the gardens" — 

 Tauk-i-bostan (Droysen, Gesch. Alexanders des Grossen, 1833, s. 553). 



t In the Sckahnameh of Firdusi it is said, '' a slender cypress, reared 

 in Paradise, did Zerdusht plant before the gate of the temple of fire" 

 (at Kishmeer in Khorassan). " He had written on this tall cypress that 

 Gushtasp had adopted the genuine faith, of which the slender tree was 

 a testimony, and thus did God diffuse righteousness. When many years 

 had passed away, the tall cypress spread and became so large that the; 

 hunter's cord could not gird its circumference. When its top was sur- 

 rounded by many branches, he encompassed it with a palace of pure 



gold and caused it to be published abroad, Where is there on 



the earth a cypress like that of Kishmeer? From Paradise God sent 

 it me, and said, Bow thyself from thence to Paradise." When the 

 Calif Motewelskil caused the cypresses, sacred to the Magians, to be 

 cut down, the age ascribed to this one was said to be 1 450 years. See 

 Vuller's Fragmente uber die Religion des Zoroaster, 1831, s. 71 und 

 114 ; and Ritter, Erdkmide. th. vi., i., s. 242. The original native place 

 of the cypress (in Arabic arar, wood, in Persian serio kohi) appears to 

 be the mountains of Busih, west of Hei'at {G4ographie d'EdHsi, trad, 

 par Jaubert, 1836, t. i., p. 464). 



