10 MACQUEEN'S BUSTARD. 



and still more ancient in their origin are the natural beauties 

 which spread before the gazer as far as the eye can reach. 

 Those vast plains, the native place of the Bustard, and the 

 very garden of flowers, vie in gorgeous beauty with the 

 richest products of the looms of Cashmere, and 'leave their 

 famed rivalry far behind. If the small pattern gives but a 

 faint idea of the 'tout ensemble,' size itself being a feature 

 that attracts and pleases, how is it when both the smallest 

 flower that takes its modest place in the great carpet of 

 nature, and the immense bespangled tapestry itself, each, as 

 a part, and as the whole, challenges all competition, and 

 distances every thought of approach; 'Solomon in all his 

 glory was not arrayed like one of these.' 



The sun above in unclouded splendour walks through the 

 sky, and flashes below from the cup of every flower and from 

 every blade of grass; the scent of aromatic herbs and sweet- 

 smelling blossoms enrich the undisturbed air; sublime stillness 

 reigns around, and a perfect calm pervades the wide solitude. 

 Nature there provides a succession of colours, such as can 

 probably nowhere else be matched. One day admiration ranges 

 over the level land dight with flowers of a golden yellow, 

 which, almost in a night, give place to new ones of the 

 deepest blue; these are followed by others of a variety of 

 hues, with which the face of the country is carpeted anew. 

 Again, a bright scarlet bedecks the meadow, and is followed 

 by the emerald green of the luxuriant pasture, itself in its 

 turn studded afresh with single gems of varied brilliancy. Once 

 more the plain is enriched with the gayest purple, or bright 

 with burnished gold, and then the greensward is flowered with 

 a gorgeous display of embroidery, whose spangles enamel its 

 bosom with a rare mosaic, such as mortal craftsmen cannot 

 fabricate the likeness of. 



Or if you change the scene, and follow the bank of the 

 winding Tigris, at one season the odour of orange blossoms 

 fills the air, and at another clusters of golden fruit hang from 

 the branches; vast groves of Feathered Palms bound the distant 

 horizon; here all is clouded with a purple shadow, and there 

 all glitters with reflected tints in the rays of the setting sun. 

 Then the awful stillness that pervades the vast expanse is 

 broken by the wild cry of some bird of night, or the howl 

 of some roaring beast roused from its lair, and then at last 

 all once more is still. But, glory be to GOD, morning comes 

 again, and again you move on, and by the shore of some 



