572 GARDENS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. 



at Hamadan. Another spot which Sir Henry Rawlinson tells us was 

 intimately associated with these paradises, was the vale of Khosran 

 Shah, situated about eight miles from Sirdarud, and which, according 

 to him, is a mass of groves and gardens. 



But the art of gardening among the Persians at the present day, 

 as among the Egyptians, seems to be on the wane. No country has 

 greater advantages— no country possesses such a variety of beautiful, 

 showy, fragrant flowers indigenous to the soil. It is, however, for 

 the sake of coolness, and for the enjoyment of seclusion, and not 

 for the sake of studying the habits of the vegetal kingdom, that 

 gardens are kept in modern Persia. They generally consist of long 

 parallel walks shaded by even rows of planes and fruit-trees and 

 flowering shrubs, and in them are fountains and rills — these are 

 the great desiderata, the water for them being brought from great 

 distances at a considerable cost. Flowers of the most gaudy and 

 of the most fragrant description are of course in abundance in this 

 land of flowers. At Ispahan most of the citizens keep gardens, and 

 the environs of Tabriz comprise a great extent of them, the circuit 

 of which, in 1838, was calculated by Sir Henry Rawlinson to be no 

 less than thirty miles. A glowing description of the royal gardens 

 of Tackt-i-Kajer and of Negauristan at Teheran is given by Sir 

 Robert Ker Porter. He especially speaks with admiration of the 

 shaded and secluded walks, of the fountains, of the nightingales, and 

 last, but not least, of the loveliness and of the exquisite perfume 

 of the rose-trees, as well as of the other flowers and shrubs. In 

 Persia, he tells us, the gardens and courts are crowded with the 

 plants, and the rooms and baths literally strewed with flowers. 



Enough has, I imagine, been said on the gardens of Persia to 

 enable the reader to contrast the differences of style between the 

 plan of " My Garden " with those of that country. He will also 

 see how the Asiatic paradises closely resembled the parks and 

 pleasure-grounds of England. 



The Greeks, although they had an intimate knowledge of these 

 Persian paradises, did not themselves have gardens on anything 



