CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 139 



of these flowers at Calicut." The Rose is to this day also ex- 

 tensively cultivated in India, and for commercial purposes per- 

 haps in greater abundance than is now known in any other 

 country. Bishop Heber states that "Ghazepoor is celebrated 

 throughout India for the wholesomn^ss of its air and the beauty 

 and extent of its rose gardens. The Rose-fields, which occupy 

 many hundred acres in the neighborhood, are described as, at the 

 proper season, extremely beautiful. They are cultivated for dis- 

 tillation and for making 'Attar of Roses.'" He states also, that 

 "many roses were growing in the garden of the palace of Delhi, 

 and the fountain pipes were carved with images of roses." An- 

 other writer describes in glowing colors the beauty of Ghazepoor, 

 the Gul-istan (the rosebeds) of Bengal. " In the spring of the 

 year, an extent of miles around the town presents to the eye a 

 continual garden of roses, than which nothing can be more beau- 

 tiful and fragrant. The sight is perfectly dazzling ; the plain, 

 as far as the eye can reach, extending in the same bespangled 

 carpet of red and green. The breezes too are loaded with the 

 sweet odor which is wafted far across the river Ganges." 



These statements sufficiently evince that the Rose was not 

 only valued by the Hindoos as an article of commerce, but was 

 intimately associated with their ideas of pleasure and enjoyment. 



Persia, however, was above all other countries pre-eminent for 

 roses. "Sir John Chardin, in 1686, found the gardens of the 

 Persians without parterres, labyrinths, and other ornaments of 

 European gardens, but filled with lilies, peach trees, and roses ; 

 and all modern travelers bear testimony to the esteem in which 

 this flower is held in the East." Sir Wm. Ousley tells us, in his 

 travels in Persia, in 1819, that when he entered the flower garden 

 belonging to the Governor of the Castle, near Farso, he was over- 

 whelmed with roses ; and Jackson, in his Journey^ (^c, says that 

 the roses of the Sinan Nile, or Garden of the Nile, are unequaled ; 

 and mattrasses are made of their leaves, for men of rank to recline 

 upon. Buckingham speaks of the rose plantations of Damascus 

 as occupying an area of many acres, about three miles from that 

 city. Sir Robert Ker Porter, speaking of the garden of one of the 



