VISITING THE GARDENS 161 



afraid of me as likely to abuse an opportunity of 

 being dull and dry, if I were qualified to play the 

 botanic pedagogue. I shall not even attempt to 

 be a guide to the Gardens, which have their own 

 official hand-books sold at the entrance ; I only 

 invite the visitor to stroll about with me in a 

 desultory manner, while together we make a few 

 observations and reflections on this great national 

 collection. 



Kew Gardens have been boasted the finest 

 and most complete botanical collection in the 

 world, as they certainly are if a handicap be 

 allowed for a climate suggesting the antipodes 

 of Eden. Their chief rival is perhaps the 

 Buitenzorg Gardens of Java, where the Dutch 

 turn for horticulture has full play upon the 

 glories of tropical vegetation brought as it were 

 to a focus. A thousand feet above the sea, 

 amid magnificent volcanic forest-clad scenery, 

 Buitenzorg, Sans Souci, the Richmond of 

 Batavia, basks under a sunny sky that yet is by 

 no means parching, for Miss North was inter- 

 rupted at her easel here by rain coming down 

 regularly each afternoon in such sheets and 

 torrents that five minutes would turn the roads 

 into streams a foot deep. The gardeners need 



