16 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
curious language, which have been published with a 
French and German translation, in the Miscellany- 
entitled “ Mines of the East.” 
In India, which may be regarded as the cradle of 
poetry, we are informed that it is customary to 
express, by the combination of flowers, those senti¬ 
ments of the heart which are regarded as too refined 
and sacred to be communicated through the common 
medium of words. The young females of Amboyna 
are singularly ingenious in the art of conversing in 
the love-language of flowers and fruits. Yet this 
language, like that employed in Turkey and in 
other parts of the East, bears no resemblance to that 
with which we have hitherto been acquainted in Eu¬ 
rope ; though, according to the received notion, we 
were indebted for our first knowledge of this lan¬ 
guage to the Crusades and to pilgrims who visited 
the Holy Land. 
In early times it was customary in Europe to 
employ particular colours for the purpose of ex¬ 
pressing certain ideas and feelings. The enamoured 
knight indicated his passion by wearing a red and 
violet scarf — if he made choice of a reddish-gray 
colour, it was to denote that love had urged him to 
