THE 



Canadian Horticulturist. 



Vol. XXII. 



1899 



N T o. 9 



SOME GARDENS OF ENCHANTMENT AND 



RENOWN. 



" Nebassar's Queen 

 Fatigued with Babylonia's level plains 

 Sighed for her Median home, where Nature's 



hand 

 Had scooped the vale and clothed the mountain 



side 

 With many a verdant wood ; nor long she pined 

 Till that uxorious monarch called on An 

 To rival Nature's sweet variety. 

 Forthwith two hundred thousand slaves up- 



rear'd 

 This hill— egregious work, rich fruit o'erhung 

 The sloping vales and odorous shrubs entwine 

 Their undulating branches. 



OME time between 590 and 

 561 B C, would seem to 

 have been the most prob- 

 able date of the erection of 

 the famous Hanging Gar- 

 dens of Babylon. (Fig. 

 1639.) The lowest stage of 

 these gardens covered between three and 

 four acres. It is not known what their 

 height was. Two ancient writers agree in 

 making their height that of the walls of 

 Babylon, but there is much difference 



33 



of opinion as to what the height of 

 these latter were. According to the 

 lowest calculation found in the pages of 

 ancient writers they were seventy- five 

 feet high Whilst this estimate was 

 probably much too moderate we must 

 consider the statement of Herodotus, 

 that they were 360 feet in height, an 

 exaggeration. The mound Babel, which 

 of late years has come to be generally 

 considered their wreck, is still 140 feet 

 high, though for centuries it has been 

 used as a quarry by the Arabs. 



As to the general external appearance 

 of the structure there seems to be two 

 main opinions. One that it was like a 

 lofty, wooded pyramid with several ter- 

 races, each smaller than the one below ; 

 the other, that as in the Roman amphi- 

 theatre, the several tiers of arches were 

 so built that the line of the outer wall 

 from base to summit was perpendicular. 

 All seem now of the opinion that arches 



