302 MORE POT-POURRI 



dazzling dream the Sultan and his harem, and whoever 

 else was great and mighty at the Court of Constantinople, 

 worshipped at the shrine of the Tulip, and the whole of 

 the East echoed the praise of the thouliban, or turban 

 flower, the corruption of which term has become our 

 name for the flower. 



' The West at that period knew nothing of the Tulip ? 

 though it had been great in the East for more years than 

 men remembered. India, Persia, and the Levant had in 

 the course of ages woven around it countless legends of 

 love and life and death ; great poets sang its praises ; the 

 heathen laid it at the feet of his gods, and the early 

 Christian of the East pointed to it as the " Lily of the 

 field " which afforded to Christ the subject of a divine 

 sermon to which the world has clung, and still is clinging, 

 as to a never-failing help when the burden of life grows 

 heavy. 



'In the sixteenth century an ambassador of the 

 Emperor of Germany to the Sublime Porte, going from 

 Adrianople to Constantinople shortly after mid-winter, 

 came upon a wondrous sight. On the roadside, among 

 the weeds and grasses, there rose in glorious beauty clump 

 after clump, bed after bed, of tall goblet-shaped flowers. 

 As the sun shone upon them they blazed with the colour 

 of fire and sunlight, and the smooth broad petals formed 

 a deep cup classically simple and perfect, closing over a 

 heart of gold. 



' Before long a few Tulip bulbs reached Germany, and 

 thence in 1577 came to England.' 



We all know how Tulips were then taken up by 

 Dutchmen. The article says that for the three years from 

 1634 to 1637 Holland was but a large asylumful of tulipo- 

 maniacs. I have just been told how that in one vineyard 

 in Alsace, and in one alone, the pretty wild tulip Tulipa 

 reflexa flourishes abundantly. I think more might be 



