346 MORE POT-POURRI 



an insane, inartistic, though perhaps natural desire, not 

 to develop the capabilities of the soil and climate in which 

 they are forced to live, which would give a real interest 

 to every plot of cultivated ground inhabited by the white 

 man, but to have a garden as like ' home ' as possible 

 to make a lawn which fails and is ugly, and to plant a 

 shrubbery which grows apace and chokes everything 

 really worth growing. 



I got last year from Seville a letter describing what a 

 Southern garden should be : ' The Alkasar Garden is the 

 most beautiful I ever saw : very neglected as regards 

 individual plants, but so lovely as a whole. The beds are 

 all sunk. You walk between dwarf Myrtle hedges on 

 tiled, paved, or brick paths, and every now and then you 

 come to a round point with coloured tile seats. Some of 

 the outside Myrtle hedges are waist-high and very fine. 

 The beds are eighteen inches below the path, and again 

 divided by little Myrtle hedges six inches high (no doubt 

 the origin of our Box edgings). They are mostly filled with 

 Violets and sweet-scented shrubs, and above tower great 

 Magnolias, Lemons, Oranges, Verbenas, Heliotrope, Jas- 

 mines in clumps, and a host of other things I do not know 

 the names of. Here and there the path leads to a great 

 raised marble tank or Moorish bath. There are innumer- 

 able small fountains sunk and tiled ; round one of these is 

 a great tiled walk with Orange-trees sunk in round holes 

 about two feet deep, making a fine double avenue. I ancy 

 the garden is pretty much as it was originally laid out by the 

 Moors. I wish you could see it. The Spaniards have added 

 their favourite carnations grown in pots, but little else. 

 It seemed to me that the style might well be copied in 

 England, making the beds much less ; certainly the little 

 shallow fountains would look lovely anywhere. We have 

 seen one or two other gardens, always the sunk beds and 

 tiled or paved paths, and always Violets used as grass 



