74 Old Time Gardens 
aware when I visited one in a friend’s garden early 
in May this year. Water-hyacinths were even 
then in bloom, and two or three exquisite Lilies ; 
and the Lotus leaves rose up charmingly from the 
surface of the tank. Less charmingly rose up also 
a cloud of vicious mosquitoes, who greeted the new- 
comer with a warm chorus of welcome. As our 
newspapers at that time were filled with plans for 
the application of kerosene to every inch of water- 
surface, such as I saw in these Lily tanks, accom- 
panied by magnified drawings of dreadful malaria- 
bearing insects, I fled from them, preferring to resign 
both Nymph tea and Anopheles . 
After the introduction to English folk of that 
wonder of the world, the Victoria Regia, it was 
cultivated by enthusiastic flower lovers in Amer- 
ica, and was for a time the height of the floral 
fashion. Never has the glorious Victoria Regia 
and scarce any other flower been described as by 
Colonel Higginson, a wonderful, a triumphant word 
picture. I was a very little child when I saw that 
same lovely Lily in leaf and flower that he called 
his neighbor ; but I have never forgotten it, nor 
how afraid I was of it ; for some one wished to 
lift me upon the great leaf to see whether it would 
hold me above the water. We had heard that the 
native children in South America floated on the 
leaves. I objected to this experiment with vehe- 
mence ; but my mother noted that I was no more 
frightened than was the faithful gardener at the 
thought of the possible strain on his precious plant 
of the weight of a sturdy child of six or seven years. 
