June ii, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



283 



compounds which are the accompaniments, and, indeed, the 

 instruments of life and activity. 



Another color-phase is presented by the Hornbeam; when 

 its male catkins are first produced slightly in advance of the 

 leaves, the whole tree is covered with a sheet of a pale olive or 

 fawn color, quite unlike any other arboreal tint familiar to us, 

 and one which rapidly changes as the leaves expand; notice 

 also the peculiar olive tint of the Lombardy Poplar at this 

 season. 



Of the peculiarities presented by the developing buds of the 

 conifers we have spoken on previous occasions. It must suf- 

 fice to say that they form objects of great beauty, interesting 

 and suggestive subjects of investigation for the student, and 

 often afford the forester means of distinguishing one species 

 from another. Too implicit confidence, however, must not 

 be placed on these characteristics, for, as we write, we have 

 before us shoots of Pinns conbra taken from two plants grow- 

 ing side by side at Coombe Wood; in the one the bud-scales 

 and shoots are pink, in the other green. Foresters and wood- 

 men are familiar with many variations of this character which 

 rarely come under the observation of the botanist, but which 

 are often of practical importance, inasmuch as they are often 

 associated with differences in the quality of the timber and 

 the degree of hardihood of the tree. 



The general course of leaf development varies somewhat 

 according to season and individual peculiarity. This season, 

 in the neighborhood of London, the Sycamore, Horse Chest- 

 nut, Thorn, Hornbeam, Lime and Birch have unfolded their 

 leaves in the order named, whilst amongst the later trees may 

 be mentioned Oak, Ash, Elm, Beech, Plane and Sweet Chest- 

 nut. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 



The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. 



XXI. The Mahometans in India. 



"\ If HEN speaking of the more ancient inhabitants of India I 

 • * said that their gardening art may well have been affected, 

 at least to some small extent, by Persian influence, for this was 

 certainly the case in many provinces with their architecture ; 

 and in my last chapter, where the advent of the Mahometan 

 conquerors was noted, it was pointed out that their art was 

 distinctly based upon the art of mediaeval Persia. It is indeed 

 most interesting to see in the Mogul remains of Hindustan the 

 sign-manual of Saracenic taste — which means a mere develop- 

 ment of mediaeval Persian taste — set on every building and 

 garden, and no sign of that "Tartar" taste which shows in the 

 architecture of the Chinese, a race of the same Turanian blood 

 as the Moguls. The great mosques of Delhi are purely Sara- 

 cenic in outline and feature, although their details are naturally 

 akin to those of the neighboring Hindu monuments since they 

 were built for the Mogul rulers by local Hindu artisans. 



In one important point, however, the Turanian origin of the 

 Moguls is evident. All peoples of Turanian blood have been 

 great tomb-builders, owing to that peculiar form of primitive 

 religion which prescribed the worship of ancestors. Wherever 

 a Turanian people has flourished — whether in recent times or 

 as the far-off predecessor of other races who have since dis- 

 possessed it — there we find a temple more like a palace than 

 like a sanctuary in the Aryan or Semitic sense, and a tomb 

 more like a shrine or temple than a mere place of sepulchre. 



So it was in India while the Moguls ruled. A change of faith 

 had banished ancestry-worship, but the passion for splendid 

 tombs persisted. The Mahometan religion required the build- 

 ing of stately mosques, and the luxurious temperament that 

 had developed in the once rude and warlike tribes from cen- 

 tral Asia demanded sumptuous palaces. But the royal tombs 

 of Mogul India surpass both mosques and palaces in interest, 

 and they show us something which we have not found in 

 studying the art of Mahometans of Arabian or Moorish blood.* 



Architecture and gardening went hand in hand under the 

 Moguls as they had under the old Hindu rulers. The mosque 

 and the palace were surrounded with ornamental grounds, 

 while as the environment of the tomb they were of peculiar 

 importance. The usual process, writes Fergusson.f when a 

 Mogul prince wishes to provide himself with a tomb, is now, 

 as it was in earlier centuries, "to enclose a garden outside 

 the city walls, generally with high crenellated walls and with 

 one or more splendid gateways ; and in the centre of this he 

 erects a square or octagonal building, crowned by a dome, 

 and in the more splendid examples with smaller dome-roofed 

 apartments on four of the sides or angles, the other four 



*The Moors built no tombs in Spain, and though Saracenic sepulchres of 

 importance exist in Persia, they cannot compare in magnificence with the Indian 

 examples. 



t " History of Indian and Eastern Architecture." 



being devoted to entrances. This building is generally 

 situated on a lofty square terrace, from which radiate four 

 broad alleys, generally with marble-paved canals ornamented 

 with fountains ; the angular spaces are planted with Cypresses 

 and other evergreens and fruit-trees, making up one of the 

 formal but beautiful gardens so characteristic of the East. 

 During the life-time of the founder the central building is 

 called a Barrah Durrie, or festal hall, and is used as a place of 

 recreation and feasting by him and his friends. At his death 

 its destination is changed — the founder's remains are in- 

 terred beneath the central dome. Sometimes his favorite 

 wife lies beside him ; but more generally his family and re- 

 lations are buried beneath collateral domes. When once 

 used as a place of burial its vaults never again resound with 

 festive mirth. The care of the building is handed over to 

 priests and cadis, who gain a precarious subsistence by the 

 sale of the fruits of the garden or the alms of those who come 

 to visit the last resting-place of their friend or master. Per- 

 fect silence takes the place of festivity and mirth. The beauty 

 of the surrounding objects combines with the repose of the 

 place to produce an effect as graceful as it is appropriate." 



The most famous and beautiful of these Mahometan garden- 

 tombs of India is the Taje-Mehal, at Delhi, built for his favor- 

 ite wife by Shah Jehan, who reigned from 1628 to 1658. Every 

 traveler has described it, and the camera has made its aspect 

 as familiar as that of the Parthenon or Notre Dame. Never- 

 theless, we can have no real idea how it looks, for, more than 

 any other great building in the world, it depends for its charm 

 upon the grouping of many different parts and the union of 

 them all with the gardens. " If the Taje were only the tomb 

 itself," says Fergusson, "it might be described ; but the plat- 

 form on which it stands, with its tall minarets, is a work of art 

 in itself. Beyond this are two wings, one of which is a mosque 

 which anywhere else would be considered an important build- 

 ing. This group of buildings forms one side of a garden- 

 court 880 feet square ; and beyond this again is an outer court, 

 of the same width but only half the depth. This is entered 

 by three gateways of its own, and contains in the centre of its 

 inner wall the great gateway of the garden-court, a worthy 

 pendant to the Taje itself. Beautiful as it is in itself, the Taje 

 would lose half its charm if it stood alone. It is the combina- 

 tion of so many beauties and the perfect manner in which 

 each is subordinated to the other that makes up a whole which 

 never fails to impress even those who are most indifferent to 

 the effect produced by architectural objects in general. . . . 

 When used as a Barrah Durrie or pleasure palace it must 

 have been the coolest and loveliest of garden retreats, and 

 now that it is sacred to the dead it is the most graceful and 

 impressive of the sepulchres of the world. . . . The long rows 

 of Cypresses which line the marble paths that intersect the gar- 

 den are now of venerable age, and, backed by masses of ever- 

 green foliage, lend a charm to the whole which the founder 

 and his children could hardly have realized. Each of the main 

 avenues among these trees has a canal along its centre stud- 

 ded with marble fountains, and each vista leads to some beau- 

 tiful architectural object." 



The Taje is still in perfect preservation, but such is not the 

 case with the palace at Delhi, likewise built by Shah Jehan, in 

 which the famous peacock throne of Aurung-Zebe afterward 

 stood, a marvel to the eyes of traveling Europeans. It formed 

 an immense group of varied and beautiful buildings, arranged 

 in a symmetrical, yet by no means monotonous way; and to 

 the northward of it the gardens survive, formally disposed 

 and filled with fountains and little pavilions and kiosks of 

 white marble. Around the great hall of this palace was car- 

 ried the famous inscription: " If there is a heaven on earth, it 

 is this, it is this; " and even to-day, we are told, when the bar- 

 barous, "civilized" European has done much to ruin the 

 beauty of the spot, the words sound none too boastfully. It 

 is still approached from the town by a magnificent street 

 nearly a mile in length with a stream of waterrunning through 

 the centre and rows of ancient trees on either hand. 



There is no sign in these descriptions of that love for pic- 

 turesqueness and variety which marks the pleasure-grounds 

 of Granada. I should hesitate to say that none but strictly 

 formal gardens were designed by the Moguls of India, for I 

 have not been able to find any comprehensive account of their 

 work in this direction. But it seems probable that a love for 

 symmetry and regularity was stronger — or at least more uni- 

 versal — here than in Spain. A common religion bound the 

 conquerors of the two countries together, and in each case we 

 see an art which was based on Perso-Arabian precedents. 

 But climate and landscape differed greatly, and the blood of 

 the two races was unlike. At Granada the most typical build- 

 ing is a palace, at Delhi it is a tomb ; if we examine the 



