Chap. VII. 



EFFECTS OF THE REBELLION. 



139 



ruins, but still putting forth its long racemes of 

 blue flowers half-covered with the broken tiles 

 and bricks, and told in mournful accents its tale 

 of peaceful times. A noble tree of the carnation- 

 flowered peach, which in former years used to be 

 loaded with rose, white, and striped blossoms, and 

 admired by all who saw it, had been cut down for 

 firewood, and the stump alone remained to tell 

 where it grew. Hundreds of pot-plants were 

 huddled together, broken, and destroyed. The 

 little house where the gardeners used to live was 

 levelled with the ground ; and the old lady, the 

 proprietor whom I had known for some years, 

 and who managed the concern after her husband's 

 death, was gone — no one knew where. In the 

 city many places were in the same condition. A 

 great portion of the celebrated tea-gardens was 

 destroyed. Here there was one little garden situ- 

 ated in front of a gentleman's house and sur- 

 rounded with high walls. In addition to nume- 

 rous plants in pots, it contained two pretty speci- 

 mens of Sophora japonica pendula, grafted high, as 

 we see the weeping-ash in England, and present- 

 ing an appearance not unlike it in the distance. 

 The house and high walls were in ruins, and the 

 trees, which had somehow escaped, could now be 

 seen a long way olf, budding and becoming green 

 amidst this scene of desolation. The face of the 

 country for some miles from the city walls was 

 also entirely changed. Formerly it had a rich 

 appearance, and was studded all over with clumps 



