10 
macqtjeen’s bustakd. 
and still more ancient in their origin are the natural beauties 
which spread before the gazer as far as the eye can reach. 
Those vast plains, the native place of the Bustard, and the 
very garden of flowers, vie in gorgeous beauty with the 
richest products of the looms of Cashmere, and leave their 
famed rivalry far behind. If the small pattern gives but a 
faint idea of the Tout ensemble,’ size itself being a feature 
that attracts and pleases, how is it when both the smallest 
flower that takes its modest place in the great carpet of 
nature, and the immense bespangled tapestry itself, each, as 
a part, and as the whole, challenges all competition, and 
distances every thought of approach; ‘Solomon in all his 
glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ 
The sun above in unclouded splendour walks through the 
sky, and flashes below from the cup of every flower and from 
every blade of grass; the scent of aromatic herbs and sweet¬ 
smelling blossoms enrich the undisturbed air; sublime stillness 
reigns around, and a perfect calm pervades the wide solitude. 
Nature there provides a succession of colours, such as can 
probably nowhere else be matched. One day admiration ranges 
over the level land dight with flowers of a golden yellow, 
which, almost in a night, give place to new ones of the 
deepest blue; these are followed by others of a variety of 
hues, with which the face of the country is carpeted anew. 
Again, a bright scarlet bedecks the meadow, and is followed 
by the emerald green of the luxuriant pasture, itself in its 
turn studded afresh with single gems of varied brilliancy. Once 
more the plain is enriched with the gayest purple, or bright 
with burnished gold, and then the greensward is flowered with 
a gorgeous display of embroidery, whose spangles enamel its 
bosom with a rare mosaic, such as mortal craftsmen cannot 
fabricate the likeness of. 
Or if you change the scene, and follow the bank of the 
winding Tigris, at one season the odour of orange blossoms 
fills the air, and at another clusters of golden fruit hang from 
the branches; vast groves of Feathered Palms bound the distant 
horizon; here all is clouded with a purple shadow, and there 
all glitters with reflected tints in the rays of the setting sun. 
Then the awful stillness that pervades the vast expanse is 
broken by the wild cry of some bird of night, or the howl 
of some roaring beast roused from its lair, and then at last 
all once more is still. But, glory be to GrOD, morning comes 
again, and again you move on, and by the shore of some 
