PERFCJMES OF THE ROSE. 



193 



guished themselves above all others. The latter repaired 

 with all his followers to the " Chapel of the Holy Cross," 

 and taking a broom himself, he swept all the dirt from 

 the floor, washed the walls and the ceiling several times 

 with pure water, and then washed them with rose-water ; 

 having thus cleansed and purified the place, he distribu- 

 ted large alms to the poor. 



Bibars, the fourth Sultan of the Mameluke dynasty, 

 who reigned from lr260 to 1277, tiaused the Caaba of the 

 temple of Mecca to be washed with rose-water. 



Mahomet IT., after the capture of Constantinople, in 

 1453, would not enter the Mosque of St. Sophia, which 

 had been formerly used as a church, until he had caused 

 it to be washed with rose-water. 



It is stated by a French historian that the greatest dis- 

 play of gorgeous magnificence at that period was made in 

 1611, by the Sultan Ahmed I., at the dedication of the 

 new Caaba, which had been built or repaired at his ex- 

 pense ; amber and aloes were burnt in . profusion, and, in 

 the extravagance of Eastern language, oceans of rose- 

 water were set afloat, for washing the courts and interior 

 surface of the walls. Rose-water is by no means so gen- 

 erally used now as for a few hundred years subsequent to 

 its invention. In France, during the reign of Philip Au- 

 gustus, it was a necessary article at court. It was for- 

 merly the custom to carry large vases filled with rose-water 

 to baptisms. Illustrating this custom, Bayle relates a 

 story of Rousard, the French poet : " It nearly happened 

 that the day of his birth was also that of his death ; for 

 when he was carried from the Chateau de La Poissoniere 

 to the church of the i:)lace to be baptized, the nurse who 

 carried him carelessly let him fall ; his fall, however, was 

 upon the grass and flowers, which received him softly ; it 

 so happened, that a young lady, who carried a vase filled 

 with rose-water and a collection of flowers, in her haste 

 to aid in helping the child, overturned on his head a large 

 9 



