460 COSMOS. 



ting effect of the light, when the tops of the palms, gently 

 moved by currents of air, come in contact as they wave to 

 and fro. So great is the charm produced by reality, although 

 the recollection of the artificial care bestowed on the plants 

 certainly exercises a disturbing influence. Perfect develop- 

 ment and freedom are inseparably connected with nature, 

 and in the eyes of the zealous and botanical traveller, the 

 dried plants of an herbarium, collected on the Cordilleras of 

 South America, or in the plains of India, are often more 

 precious than the aspect of the same species of plants within 

 an European hothouse. Cultivation blots out some of the 

 original characters of nature, and checks the free development 

 of the several parts of the exotic organisation. 



The physiognomy and arrangement of plants and their 

 contrasted apposition must not be regarded as mere objects of 

 natural science, or incitements towards 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 

 noticed amongst nations of Semitic, Indian, and Iranian 

 descent, so also we find from history that the cultivation of 

 parks originated in Central and Southern Asia. Semiramis 

 caused gardens to be laid out at the foot of the Mountain 

 Bagistanos, which have been described by Diodorus,* and 

 whose fame induced Alexander, on his progress from Kelone 

 to the horse pastures of Nysoca, 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 Firt. It is thus that the form of the tree itself has 



* 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, 



