164 
KOSli. 
my first entering this bower of fairy land,’ 
says Sir Robert Kerr Porter, speaking of the 
garden of ond of the royal palaces of Persia, 
‘ I was struck with the appearance of two 
rose trees full fourteen feet high, laden with 
thousands of flowers in every degree of expan¬ 
sion, and of a bloom and delicacy of scent that 
embued the whole atmosphere with exquisite 
perfume. Indeed, I believe that in no coun¬ 
try in the world does the rose grow in such 
perfection as in Persia ; in no country is it so 
cultivated and prized by the natives. Their 
gardens and courts are crowded by its plants, 
their rooms ornamented with vases filled with 
its gathered bunches, and every path with the 
full blown flowers plucked with the ever-re¬ 
plenished stems.But, in this 
delicious garden of Negaaristan, the eye and 
the smell are not the only senses regaled by 
the presence of the rose. The ear is en¬ 
chanted by the wild and beautiful notes of 
multitudes of nightingales, whose warblings 
seem to increase in melody and softness with 
the unfolding of their favourite flowers. Here 
indeed the stranger is more powerfully re¬ 
minded, that he is in the genuine country of 
the nightingale and the rose.’ 
“ A festival is held in Persia, called the 
feast of Roses, which lasts the whole time 
they are in bloom. 
“ The bed of roses is not altogether a fiction. 
The Roses of the Sinan Nile, or garden of the 
Nile, attached to the Emperor of Morocco’s 
palace, are unequalled; and mattrasses are 
