AND LOWER EGYPT. 200. 



tranquillity the riches of three quarters of the 

 globe, and diffuses abundance over its shores ; its 

 vicinity has nothing to create an alarm, and its 

 very extravagations are benefits. 



A vast cultivated champaign extends to the 

 north of the city; it is laid out in garden-grounds: 

 these are not divided and enclosed, in a dry harsh 

 manner, by gloomy walls -, odoriferous hedges sur- 

 round groves of perfume still more odoriferous. 

 Neither must you go thither in quest of those 

 straight-lined alleys, of those stiff flower borders, 

 or those methodical compartments, the monuments 

 which art rears in our monotonous enclosures. 

 Every thing there seems to be the arrangement of 

 chance : the orange and the citron trees interlace 

 their branches, and the pomegranate hangs down 

 by the side of the corsosol. Under a sky which 

 never knows the blighting of a hoar-frost, their 

 flowers exhale, at all seasons, a perfume which the 

 sweet odour of the clusters of the henna * renders 

 still more delicious. Pot-herbs grow luxuriantly 

 under this balmy shade. The date-tree, rearing 

 its summit above the other trees of its vicinity, 

 presents a deviation from the slightest appearance 

 of uniformity : no one tree, no one plant, has a de- 

 terminate place; every thing there is varied, every 

 thing is scattered about with a species of irregula- 



* A tall shrub, of which 1 shall say more presently. 



vol. i. v rity 



