HISTORICAL EPILOGUE 3 1 9 



thirty-six terraces, one above the other, nine on each side, and 

 one of the sides covered with buildings. Each of these terraces 

 is hung with pallissades of jasmine, orange-trees or pomegranates." 



Besides being a mystical poet, King Solomon was a very 

 practical gardener and botanist, and as we know that his garden 

 was quadrangular and surrounded by a high wall, it may be 

 surmised that he favoured the formal style. Josephus gives him 

 credit for being the first to plant the cedar in Judaea, and 'the 

 humble hyssop in the wall ' did not escape his notice any more 

 than the more heavily scented rose, lily, camphire, spikenard, 

 saffron and cinnamon ; it is rumoured Solomon's pools still exist, 1 

 but had they been in Europe, instead of the unchanging East, 

 there is little doubt they would long ago have been thrown into 

 a lake. 



The ancient Persian garden or park (Paradise) seems to have 

 undergone little change in form from the days of Xenophon, 

 through those of the later travellers Chardin and Tavernier in 

 the seventeenth century, down to our own time ; 2 and for the 

 ' roses and raptures ' which you may find missing in their actual 

 gardens, you must appeal to the imaginative ones of Hafiz, Saadi 

 and Omar Khayyam. 3 Compare, for instance, Lord Curzon's 

 description of the gardens of Shiraz with the utterances of the 

 poets : 



'From the outside, a square or oblong enclosure is visible, 

 enclosed by a high mud wall, over the top of which appears 

 a dense bouquet of trees. The interior is thickly planted with 

 these, or as Herbert phrased it, with lofty pyramidal cypresses, 

 broad spreading chenawrs, tough elm, straight ash, knotty pines, 

 fragrant masticks, kingly oaks, sweet myrtles, useful maples. 

 They are planted down the sides of long alleys, admitting of 

 no view but a vista, the surrounding plots being a jungle of 



1 'MaundrelFs Travels.' 2 See ante pp. 4 and 126. 



3 One wonders if * Come into the Garden, Maud ' with all its flower 

 personification was inspired by Jami's ' Come into the Garden, for without 

 thy care or mine, all is ready for pleasure. Since the rose has removed the 

 veil from before her cheek, the narcissus has become all eyes to gaze upon 

 her.' 



