FRAGRANT LEAVES V. SWEET-SCENTED FLOWERS. 
135 
have good and reliable evidence to show that they were used by 
the earliest of civilised people on this earth, and we may believe 
that they were employed long before people were very highly 
civilised, since we find them used by savage tribes at the pre¬ 
sent day. History tells us that the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and 
Phoenicians, the Hebrews and Egyptians, the Greeks and the 
Romans, the Gauls and the Celts, and the Saxons all used sweet 
odours in some shape or form. By the same token we know 
that perfumes were used by the sturdy Normans and the crafty 
Moors : all had and used choice and rare perfumes on which 
Fig. 29. 
they set great store. The same is especially true of the 
early peoples eastward, as well as westward. Perfumes and 
savoury odours were used by Hindu and by Aztec alike ; and if a 
full and true account of perfumes could be written to-day, I 
think we should be a little astonished at the great, and even 
tragic, parts they have played at times in the history of the 
human race. In Shakespeare’s time old English gardens were 
rich in fragrant and aromatic herbs, many of which were highly 
valued in rural medicine. The growing and culling of herbs 
and simples, and their distillation, or formation into cordials 
