80 



PARSOXS ON THE ROSE. 



' Attar of Roses.' " He states also, that " many roses 

 were growing in the garden of the palace of Delhi, and 

 the fountain pipes were carved with images of roses." 

 Another writer describes in glowing colors the beauty of 

 Ghazopoor, the Gul-istan (the rose beds,) of Bengal. " In 

 the spring of the year, an extent of miles around the 

 town presents to the eye a continual garden of roses, than 

 which nothing^ can be more beautiful and frao-rant. The 

 sight is perfectly dazzling ; the plain, as far as the eye can 

 reach, exteuding in the same bespangled carpet of red and 

 green. The breezes, too, are loaded with the sweet odor 

 which is wafted far across the river Ganges." 



These statements sufficiently evince that the Rose was 

 not only valued by the Hindoos as an article of commerce, 

 but was intim.:.tely associated with their ideas of pleasure 

 and enjoyment. 



Persia, however, was, above all other countries, preemi- 

 nent for roses. " Sir John Chardin, in 1686, found the 

 gardens of the Persians without parterres, labyrinths, and 

 other ornaments of European gardens, but filled with 

 lilies, jDcach trees, and roses ; and all modern travelers 

 bear testimony to the esteem in which this flower is held 

 in the East." Sir Wm. Ousley tells us, in his travels in 

 Persia, in 1819, that when he entered the flower garden 

 belonging to the Governor of the Castle, near Farso, he 

 was overwhelmed Avith roses ; and Jackson, in his Journey , 

 etc.^ says that the roses of the Sinan Nile, or Garden of 

 the Nile, are unequaled ; and mattresses are made of their 

 leaves, for men of rank to recline upon. Buckingham 

 speaks of the rose plantations of Damascus as occupying 

 an area of many acres, about three miles from that city. 

 Sir Robert Ker Porter, speaking of the garden of one of 

 the royal palaces of Persia, says : " I was struck with the 

 appearance of two rose trees, full fourteen feet high, laden 

 Avith thousands of flowers, in every degree of expansion, 

 and of a bloom and delicacy of scent that imbued the 



