GARDENS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. 569 



The form of the garden was quadrangular, and Dean Stanley informs 

 us that it was probably here, " more than anywhere else, the wise 

 king cultivated his knowledge of trees, from the transplanted cedar 

 to the native hyssop." In this garden of Solomon grew the 

 choicest and rarest of plants : " orchards of pomegranates with pleasant 

 fruits ; " " camphire with spikenard ; " also " saffron, calamus, and 

 cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the 

 chief spices." 



Damascus has ever been celebrated for its gardens, which in the time 

 of Maundrell extended to more than thirty miles round. The same 

 authority also gives a curious description of their garden walls, " which 

 are," says he, "built of great pieces of earth, made in the fashion of 

 brick, and hardened in the sun. In their dimensions they are two 

 yards long each, and somewhat more than one broad, and half a yard 

 thick. Two rows of these placed edgeways one upon another make a 

 cheap, expeditious, and in this dry country endurable wall." William 

 de Bouldesall, in the fourteenth century, wrote that he was much 

 astonished with the gardens about this place, which according to him 

 amounted to no less than 40,000, and many other authors speak of them 

 with admiration. Here, too, roses are largely cultivated for the making 

 of the celebrated attar of roses. Probably, " the old interpretation " 

 of Nazareth, as " Flowery," is derived from this village being, as Dean 

 Stanley terms it, " a rich and beautiful field in the midst of green hills, 

 abounding in gay flowers, in fig-trees, small gardens, hedges of the 

 prickly pear ; and the dense rich grass affords an abundant pasture." 



At Jerusalem the wealthy citizens had their gardens without the 

 city walls ; and they were very numerous, extending to the Mount 

 of Olives. With the exception of the rose gardens, which are said to 

 have existed in the days of the Prophets, none were allowed within the 

 city, on account of the unhealthy effect that was considered to be pro- 

 duced from the putrefaction of weeds and of other offensive substances. 

 The site of the garden of Gethsemane has given rise to dispute. In a 

 modern garden enclosure there are eight aged olive-trees, which are 

 by some considered to have originally stood in the most memorable 



