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the time of enjoyment is short, especially during the hot winds. 

 One great desideratum is the verdant lawn almost peculiar to the 

 •English gardens; a tropical sun would not admit of it in the fair 

 season, and during the rainy months the rank luxuriant grass more 

 resembles reeds and rushes than the soft carpet bordered by an 

 English shrubbery. 



Beautiful as are the British gardens and pleasure grounds, in- 

 somuch as to have become proverbial on the continent, I do not 

 think their charms can be fully appreciated by those who have 

 not travelled in the torrid zone; the deprivation of shady groves 

 and living streams has taught them to know their value. We can 

 form some idea of the traveller's joy from the sensations they have 

 expressed on leaving the burning deserts of Syria and Arabia, and 

 approaching the groves of Yemen, or the gardens of Damascus. 

 The beauty and value of a garden thus refreshed by shade and 

 water, is perhaps no where more highly estimated than by the 

 prophet Jeremiah; who, in foretelling the return of the Jews from 

 the Babylonish captivity, uses a variety of customary images to 

 express their joy. " I will build thee, and thou shall be built, O 

 virgin of Israel! thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrels, and 

 shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou 

 shalt plant vines upon the mountain, upon my mountain in the 

 field: 1 will cause thee to walk by the rivers of waters, and keep 

 thee as a shepherd keepeth his flock. They shall flow together 

 for the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, for oil, and 

 for the young of the flock; their soul shall be a watered garden : 

 they shall sorrow no more !" 



I have mentioned various modes of irrigating the oriental gar- 



