May 16, 1891. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
589 
Rameses ; and we all know what Meneptha I., son of 
the mighty Sesostris, said to the Jews when in bondage 
and deprived of the means for making bricks—-“Ye are 
idle ! Ye are idle ! ” 
Now I am going to ask you to try and carry your 
thoughts far away back over that vast bridge of time 
which unites to-day with twenty-five centuries ago—a 
hard task, I admit; nevertheless, let us make an effort. 
Judging from my own experience of the intense heat 
which usually prevails along the shore of El Hejaz 
and Yemen, from the Gulf of Acaba to the Straits of 
Babel Mandeb, I would suggest that we imagine our¬ 
selves in Babylon the Great on a fine October morning, 
waiting admission to the gardens of the palace. The 
entrance gates are of massive brass, and are opened 
and closed by means of a machine, the mechanism of 
which I am unable to interpret. The stalwart Chaldean 
keeper of the gate, satisfied from our tablets that we 
are satraps of the great king 
from far distant provinces, 
desirous of rendering homage 
and becoming eye witnesses 
of his state and magnificent 
surroundings, admit us. We 
pass the second and third 
walls which surround this 
royal compound, and then 
gaze in admiration upon the 
enchanting vistas of superb 
arboriculture which can claim 
no equal in gardeniDgrecords, 
except perhaps in such as 
characterise the subtle in¬ 
genuity of our modern horti¬ 
culturists. But we may not 
linger, for through the long 
vistas of rich foliage we espy 
the glittering spears of the 
Chaldean sentries as they 
pace to and fro upon the 
terraces of this superb palace 
whose verandahs, pavilions, 
and terraces of granite, 
marble porphyry, jade, and 
malachite, wrought as oc¬ 
casion required with rare 
and odoriferous woods, scin¬ 
tillate in the bright eastern 
sunlight. So through long 
avenues of Palms, Cypresses, 
and Laurels (whose foliage 
effectually shelter us from 
the sun’s rays) we wend our 
way, charmed by the music 
of the thousand and one 
rivulets of water which 
irrigate the soil and freshen 
the atmosphere, by the 
melodious song of birds and 
the odour of exquisite per¬ 
fumes. Arrived at the outer 
court of the palace, we again 
establish our identity by the 
presentation of our tablets, 
but learning that the great 
king is sleeping off last 
night’s surfeit we are permit¬ 
ted by the courteous cham¬ 
berlain of His Majesty to 
wander through the fairyland 
which surrounds this unique 
.pile. 
Through groves of Orange trees planted in straight 
lines we therefore wend our way. Presently our path 
leads through alleys bordered with Roses, Violets, and 
other odoriferous flowers, then through avenues of the 
narrow-leaved Elm, now known as the English Elm, 
and supposed to be a native of the Holy Land. Here 
we espy the graceful gazelle, bounding along, and in 
an adjoining grove the lazy, inquisitive-looking goat 
of Thibet disputes our right of passage, and presently 
espy a troop of agile monkeys, importations doubtless 
from India or Ethiopia. We now pass on through groves 
of Date Palms and Pomegranates, and then through 
enclosures planted with other Palms and Sycamores, 
containing large basins of porphyry where the Lotus 
grew, and where, as in Egypt, doubtless may have 
been seen the sacred ibis, the ichneumon ; amid those 
clusters of Bamboo the terrible najah, a reptile, which 
for deadliness has no equal on earth, save, perhaps, in 
that of the cobra, or amadriad of India ; but we will not 
disturb his noonday slumber, for we are just entering 
the vineyards surrounded by Dates, and probably the 
Doum Palms of Upper Egypt. 
{To be continued.) 
THE HANGING GARDENS OP 
BABYLON.* 
At the invitation of my friend Mr. Stanley Baxter, I 
have come to address you briefly upon a subject which, 
I regret to say, is so hedged around with uncertainty, 
and so shadowy, consequent upon the lapse of ages, 
that I fear my few remarks must be at best fragmentary 
in character. I shall, however, endeavour to string 
together those fragments in such a manner that you 
may be enabled to form some idea of that marvel of 
antiquity, “the hanging gardens of ancient Babylon.” 
The Babylonian gardens of any moment were few, 
but sublime in character ; our modern gardens, on the 
other hand, are universal, but chastened in character, 
beautiful in design, highly calculated to elevate the 
mind, and possessing by their charm a true incentive 
to happiness. We must honestly confess that it is a 
difficult matter to fully estimate the true charact e r of 
these Babylonian groves by 
a mere comparison of them 
with institutions of our own 
times. Take for instance 
a rustic bridge which spans 
the brook in yonder sylvan 
valley—how it delights one 
by its simplicity ? There 
is a charm about it which 
calls forth our warmest 
admiration ; whilst, on the 
other hand, we behold a 
gigantic structure stretching 
across the dark waters of 
a Scottish Firth, which 
appals by its magnitude, and 
fills one with wonder rather 
than admiration. In like 
manner the Ivy-clad village 
church, surrounded by stately 
Elms and the rich foliage of 
the Copper Beech, no less 
rejoices by its picturesque 
simplicity, whilst the hoary 
pile of a Milan cathedral 
or the majestic ruins of a 
temple of Kamak fill one 
with awe and seal one’s lips 
in mute astonishment, and 
I presume this in a greater 
or less degree has been the 
experience of the majority. 
I shall never forget how fully 
some few years ago I realised 
this difference between the 
sublime and the beautiful; 
On a bright afternoon in 
the month of March I was 
leaning against the bulwarks 
of a French steamer; as we 
glided through the blue 
waters of the Gulf of Suez I 
was gazing with some feel¬ 
ings of awe upon the distant, 
rugged, lightning - riven 
heights of Mount Sinai. I 
thought and felt as I con¬ 
templated this hoary range 
that there was no moun¬ 
tain on earth so unique in 
character, history and gran¬ 
deur. An Everest and a 
Matterhorn may rise to a 
higher altitude, but in that 
their interest ceased. What a contrast this is to the 
Pine-clad hills which grace the shores of a Scotch loch 
or an English lake ! On the one hand we are awed by 
sublimity, on the other charmed by simple beauty. 
Thus much by way of illustration. The contrasts are 
great I admit, but equally great is that which exists 
between a modern and an ancient eastern garden. 
From the sublime and beautiful of today we will now 
turn to that which characterised th& hanging gardens 
of Babylon, and the better to realise their stupendous 
character we will take a hasty glance at the City of 
the Nimrods. 
Babylon (the modern Hillah) is the Greek Babel, or 
Bab-ili—“The Gate of God,” or, as is. sometimes desig¬ 
nated ‘ The Gate of the Gods.” It was also known as 
the Hollow, consequent upon its situ ation on the banks 
of the Euphrates, and down to later times as Din Tir 
or the House ot the Jungle. There* can be no doubt 
* A raper read Ry Mr. Hutchings Eav. >s, at a meeting of the 
Croydon Gardene.s' and Amateurs’ Mutual improvement Society, 
M rch 24th, 1891. t 1 ' 
that Babylon, the metropolis of the Babylonio-Chaldean 
empire, was one of the most wonderful cities of the old 
world, situated on a plain on both sides of the river 
Euphrates, which equally divided it. It is supposed to 
have occupied the site of the Babet of Nimrod’s king¬ 
dom. Its circumference is supposed to have exceeded 
fifty-five miles, and it was surrounded by a wall 350 ft. 
high, outside of which was a vast trench filled with 
water. To Nebuchadnezzar that marvellous city was 
indebted for those vast structures which made it one of 
the wonders of the world, though it may be said to have 
been at the height of its glory at the accession of Assur- 
bani-pal, the famous Sardanapalus of the Greeks. 
One of the most famous buildings (and the one which 
concerns us mostly) was the magnificent palace of 
Nebuchadnezzar, known as “The Admiration of Man¬ 
kind,” which, together with its gardens, measured 
nearly eight miles in circumference. The building of 
Saxifeaga cordifolia purpurea. 
this marvellous structure, together with the perfecting 
of its unique gardens, was commenced by Nabopolassar 
somewhere about 625 b.c., and completed by his son 
Nebuchadnezzar some years after his accession in 604 
B.c., so that, roughly speaking, remembering the long . 
reign of the latter king (forty-three years), it is not 
improbable that that vast undertaking spread over a 
quarter of a century, although it is on record that it 
occupied but fifteen days in building. Next to im¬ 
possible as this may appear, we must, nevertheless, 
not lose sight of the fact that in those remote ages 
eastern potentates, in order to compass their lightest 
wishes, unblushingly imposed upon whole armies of 
their subjects forced labour, without respect to person ; 
men of subtle brain and ingenuity in their several 
vocations, to hewers of wood and drawers of water, were 
alike drafted (however much against their will) into 
this vast army of skilled humanity, impotent as slaves 
to withstand the will of this all-powerful descendant of 
the mighty Nimrod. It was so in ancient Egypt under 
the Amenamats, the great Thothmes, and the early 
