INTRODUCTION. 13 
the nosegay, and appeared to read in it some secret 
message. He pressed it to his bosom, then fastened 
it in his turban, and, after making some signs to- 
wards the window, he withdrew. The young gal- 
lant appeared from his dress to be nothing more 
than a poor water-carrier. But the Turkish proverb 
says that, however high a woman may rear her 
head towards the clouds, her feet nevertheless touch 
the earth. The girl was actually the daughter of a 
rich Jew, worth a hundred thousand piastres. 
A nosegay, a garland of flowers, ingeniously 
selected, and put together for the purpose of com- 
municating in secret and expressive language the 
sentiments of the heart, is in the East called a Saam 
(salutation). It often happens that a female slave, 
the object of the Sultan's favour, corresponds openly 
with her lover merely by the various arrangement of 
flower-pots in a garden. Written love-letters would 
often be inadequate to convey an idea of the pas- 
sionate feelings which are thas expressed through 
the medium of flowers. Thus, orange flowers sig- 
nify hope ; marigolds, despair ; sunflowers, con- 
stancy ; roses, beauty ; and tulips represent the 
complaints of infidelity. 
This hieroglyphic language is known only to the 
