238 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, July II, 1857. 
his native costume, knowing besides his own Arabic only a 
few words of Italian, and little else in his pocket but a letter 
of introduction to a clergyman of one of our most populous 
London parishes. By a fortunate circumstance he came to 
be received into the house of a gentleman in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Kingston, where his pleasing and intelligent man¬ 
ners, excellent conduct, together with his country and cause, 
gained him many friends, and by their means he was 
enabled to prosecute his medical studies at St. George’s 
hospital, the medical gentlemen there kindly giving him 
free admission to all their lectures. From them he received 
the highest testimonials, both as to the manner in which he 
had pursued his studies, and more especially the great pro¬ 
gress he had made in anatomy. In 1819 he returned to his 
native land with his diploma in his pocket, and a great deal 
more science in his head than he had ever dreamt of before 
he left it. He writes constantly to his friends, and in a 
letter lately received gives the following account of his 
labours:—“ Oftentimes, when I am going along the road, 
people issue to see me from their villages, and stop me on 
the road and tell me their complaints, and I give them my 
advice while sitting on my horse, and patients whose houses 
are close by roads entreat me to shift a little the way, and 
dismount to see them; and mothers carrying their infants 
in their arms meet me on the way. I never refuse any, but 
whether in the scorching heat of summer, or cold and rains 
of winter, I stop to listen to them and relieve them.” In , 
writing of the aspect of the country Abdallah says : “ I do see [ 
a variety of wild flowers adorning our fields; the gardener 
is Nature, and how well she rears them ! ” He praises espe- ! 
cially the beauty of the Lilium candidam, which he says 
covers the steep sides of the valleys and fills the air with its 
fragrance. 
We have thus gained one point only of a subject 
which occupied the botanical mind of Europe from the 
first dawn of scientific botauy, but it settles nothing 
about the Lily of Scripture. That Lily must have been, 
and is to this day, a common plant all the way from the 
banks of the river Kishon, at the back of Carmel, to 
those of the Jordan, where it enters the Lake of Tiberias, 
the Sea of Galilee. The congregation on the Mount 
being principally the dwellers in that portion of the 
Holy Land, “Behold the Lily of the field” would have 
been as familiar to them as the Daisy or Buttercup 
would be to an English ear. Not so, however, if that 
Lily was only to be seen in the country of the Maronites, 
which is far away from Nazareth, and over a range of 
mountains. When Joshua divided the laud of Canaan 
to the tribes of Israel the country of the Maronites fell 
to the “ lot” of Asher, and in the days of Solomon it was 
from this very place that he had the Cedar trees from 
King Hiram to build the temple; and all that remain 
of the Cedars of Lebanon, which furnished such beautiful 
imagery to David and Solomon and other sacred writers, 
are situated not many miles above where Abdallah 
gathered those white Lilies which are now in the 
Experimental. Lord Palmerston had his fingers in a 
hot pie there not many years back, and M. Thiers will 
never forgive the dashing way Lord Palmerston settled 
that dispute, without France getting as much as a piece 
of the crust; and later still a friend of mine, after 
seeing Damascus and the ruins of Balbeck, came round 
through the countries of the Druses and Maronites to 
have a sight of the old Cedars, from which he brought 
me cones. He, too, was looking for the white Lily, but 
saw none, although he visited every place of note in 
the Holy Land. 
Now, would you not suppose that any one visiting the 
Holy Land would go a little out of the way to see these 
celebrated trees, as my friend, a courier, did? There is 
no doubt but scores of people went to the very spot since 
the time of the Crusades, and in going up to them or 
coining down from them they must have passed through 
the native places of the white Lily, and yet we have not 
a single syllable on record about any one having ever 
| seen it there. This may be taken as presumptive evi¬ 
dence in favour of the white Lily being a native of 
Galilee at least, and the actual Lily referred to in the 
sermon on the Mount after all; for if they could not 
see it on the north of the range, where it certainly does 
grow wild, how could they find it in Galilee, which is at 
the foot of the southern slope, so to speak ? 
About fifteen or sixteen years since Dr., now Sir John, 
Bowring was in Syria, and saw the “ fields” and by¬ 
ways about Nazareth, Galilee, and on to the Jordan in 
a blaze during April with the Byzantine Lily of old 
authors, Lilium Chalcedonicum of modern botany", but 
he, too, failed to see a single white Lily growing wild in 
all Syria. From his account of the scarlet Lily being a 
common plant in the Lloly Land, botanists have taken 
it for granted that Lilium Chalcedonicum ., which is of 
the Martagon section, must have been the Lily of the 
Scripture. It strikes me that Abdallah will be able to 
clear up the point; he promised to send us the red 
Lily of Syria also. We shall send him this number of 
The Cottage Gardener to see the fix we are in; and 
if the two Lilies do not bloom about the same time 
there, or if there is a friend between him and Samaria 
who knows the white Lily to grow wild anywhere about 
Galilee, he will be able to tell us. 
D. Beaton. 
THE CINERARIA. 
The Cineraria is now quite out of bloom, and, of 
course, will be set out of doors, perhaps behind some 
hedge or wall, utterly uncared for except obtaining now 
and then a regular sluicing of water. Wherever this 
slovenly method is practised it is not only wrong but 
ungrateful. The plants have done their best to please 
their cultivator, and should have some return in the shape 
of attention. To say no more on that head, the question 
is, What do the Cineraria plants require now? In the 
first place, it should be determined at once what varieties 
are not worth keeping, and that being resolved, let them 
be thrown to the rubbish heap forthwith, and the pots 
washed and put away in their place. Then, in the second 
place, let all such as are intended to be kept be planted 
out in a bed in the open garden, the pots treated like 
the others. When this is all done there will be fewer un¬ 
sightly objects, and less care in watering required. Those 
plants so put out in the border will soon put forth side- 
shoots. As soon as these have the least bit of root to each 
divide them carefully off the old plant, put them in small 
pots, and place them under glass, a frame being the best, 
shading them from the sun. In a fortnight they will 
have made fresh roots, and may then have more light 
and air. To make good plants they will now require 
frequent repottings in rich soil. The best compost I 
know for these plants is composed of turfy loam three 
parts, and one part two-year-old cowdung, liberally 
mixed with river sand. In this, if duly watered, fre¬ 
quently repotted, and kept clear of green fly by often 
filling the frame with tobacco smoke, by September the 
plants will have broad, healthy leaves, and the roots 
will have filled eight-inch pots completely. After that 
they must he kept as cool as possible short of actual 
frost. I have always found them more healthy in a 
well-protected frame or pit through the winter than in 
the best greenhouse. 
Seedlings will or ought now to be ready to pot off. 
Here the open air treatment is by far the best. Pre¬ 
pare a bed for them by adding to the soil some well- 
decomposed dung and sand, raising it a little above 
the level of the rest of the ground ; choose a damp, 
cloudy day, and prick out in this prepared bed the 
seedling Cinerarias, planting them in rows five inches 
apart, and three inches from plant to plant in the rows; 
water them] immediately very gently, and give them a 
