OF VARIOUS NATIONS. 567 



the Christian era. Besides these royal gardens, it is surmised 

 that there were others on the banks of the Euphrates, where, beneath 

 the willow-trees, the Israelites sat down and wept. In a .letter 

 which the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the captives at Babylon he 

 says: "Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, 

 and eat the fruit of them ;" but I know not whether his sage advice 

 was attended to by them. At Nineveh we learn from good authorities 

 that gardens are considered to have been within the city walls, and 

 that private houses, which occupied the space between the great public 

 edifices, stood in the midst of gardens, some being of considerable 

 extent. The exact manner in which these were laid out cannot be 

 known, although we may infer that in that stiff and formal age 

 conventionality would be more studied than the beautiful freedom 

 of nature. In the vaults of the British Museum is a bas-relief which 

 evidently represents the garden of one of the Assyrian kings. It 

 consists of trees, and in the centre a long walk leads upwards to an 

 altar, and at regular distances canals intersect the grounds. The date 

 of this garden must have been about 1200 B.C. Near to the above- 

 mentioned bas-relief is another from the same country, and there- 

 fore of the same age ; this shows vines, palms and other trees, a 

 plant in bloom, and in the middle is a man with two dogs : and 

 on another stone is a representation of an Assyrian bower com- 

 posed of vines, in which sit the King Askarbebul and his queen. 

 Thus we see that this belligerent nation as were the Assyrians 

 were not wholly devoid of love for nature, although our knowledge 

 of the extent to which it was carried must necessarily be very 

 meagre. Diodorus tells us of the garden that Semiramis, who lived, 

 it is said, B.C. 2182, made at the foot of the mountain Bagistan. He 

 gives the size of it as being twelve furlongs in compass ; according 

 to him, the whole of it was watered by a great fountain : towards 

 one of its sides were steep rocks, seventeen furlongs from the top 

 to the bottom. The fame of this garden was so great that 

 Alexander the Great, on his journey from Kelone to Nyssea, went out 

 of his way in order to visit it. Observing a "great and high rock" 



