140 CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 



royal palaces of Persia, says : " I was struck with the appear- 

 ance of two rose trees, full fourteen feet high, laden with thousands 

 of flowers, in every degree of expansion, and of a bloom and 

 delicacy of scent that imbued the whole atmosphere with exquisite 

 perfume. Indeed, I believe that in no country in the world does 

 the rose grow in such perfection as in Persia ; in no country is it 

 so cultivated and prized by the natives. Their gardens and courts 

 are crowded by its plants, their rooms ornamented with roses, filled 

 with its gathered branches, and every bath strewed with the full- 

 blown flowers, plucked with the ever-replenished stems. 

 But in this delicious garden of Negaaristan, the eye and the smell 

 are not the only senses regaled by the presence of the Rose : the 

 ear is enchanted by the wild and beautiful notes of multitudes of 

 nightingales, whose warblings seem to increase in melody and 

 softness, with the unfolding of their favorite flowers. Here, indeed, 

 the stranger is more powerfully reminded, that he is in the gen- 

 uine country of the nightingale and the Rose." Rivers mentions 

 that Sir John Malcolm told him, that when in Persia he had once 

 breakfasted on an immense heap, or rather mount, of roses, which 

 the Persians had raised in honor of him. The rose of Cashmere 

 has been long celebrated in the East, for its brilliancy and delicacy 

 of odor 



;: Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, 

 With its Roses, the brightest, that earth ever gave?" 



Throughout the whole season during which the roses remained 

 in bloom in this beautiful valley, the Feast of Roses was kept 

 with great rejoicing, and an entire abandonment to pleasure. At 

 this time, a great number of tents were pitched, and multitudes of 

 men, women, boys and girls, were dancing and singing to the 

 music of their various instruments. 



All that has been handed down to us, and all we know at the 

 present time of the climate and productions of Persia, and the 

 customs of its inhabitants, prove that it was emphatically the 

 land of roses ; and all that we can gather from its history or tra- 

 dition, evinces, that to the inhabitants of the East, including the 



