248 MOONLIGHT GARDENS 



purpose gather there the flowers with which they 

 adorn some idols and embellish others. Such 

 gardens are to them what some cemetery is to 

 us where the bodies of saints lie, from which 

 flows some miraculous liquid capable of curing 

 maladies that cannot be benefited by ordinary 

 and natural remedies, or let us say like some 

 culturable land bequeathed and vowed to any 

 one of our churches so that the corn produced 

 may be applied for the use of holy men." 



Among Hindus the customs with regard to 

 flowers and trees are very beautiful. With them 

 there is no echo of the long quarrel between man 

 and nature, which lingers in Christian and Moslem 

 minds as a legacy from dark mediaeval times ; 

 and Hindus have felt for centuries past things 

 whose existence we, in the West, are only on the 

 verge of realising. India, however, is no excep- 

 tion to the rule that it is women who preserve 

 intact the old religious observances ; there, as 

 elsewhere, it is they who keep old memories 

 fragrant so the Indian garden is above all the 

 purdah woman's province. The day begins with 

 the housewife's reverence, the pradakshina about 

 the sacred tulsi bush, which is generally planted in 

 an altar built for the purpose in the centre of the 



