INTRODUCTION. 
5 
carrier. But the Turkish proverb says that, how¬ 
ever high a woman may rear her head towards 
the clouds, her feet nevertheless touch the earth. 
The girl wms actually the daughter of a rich Jew, 
worth a hundred thousand piastres. 
A nosegay, or garland of flowers, ingeniously 
selected, and put together for the purpose of 
communicating in secret and expressive lan¬ 
guage the sentiments of the heart, is in the 
East called a Salaam (salutation). It often hap¬ 
pens that a female slave corresponds 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 feelings which are thus expressed through 
the medium of flowers. Thus, orange-flowers 
signify hope; marigolds, despair; sunflowers, 
constancy ; roses, beauty ; and tulips represent 
the complaints of infidelity. 
This hieroglyphic language is known only to 
the lover and his mistress. In order to envelop 
it the more completely in the veil of secresy, 
the significations of the different flowers are 
changed, in conformity with a preconcerted 
plan : for example, the rose is employed to ex- 
B 3 
