Of strictly Oriental trees and shrubs and flowers, perhaps the majority of Anglo Indians think with much less enthusiasm than of the common weeds of England. The remembrance of the simplest wild flower of their native fields will make them look with perfect indifference on the decorations of an Indian Garden. This is in no degree surprizing. Yet nature is lovely in all lands.
Indian scenery has not been so much the subject of description in either prose or verse as it deserves, but some two or three of our Anglo-Indian authors have touched upon it. Here is a pleasant and truthful passage from an article entitled "A Morning Walk in India," written by the late Mr. Lawson, the Missionary, a truly good and a highly gifted man:--
"The rounded clumps that afford the deepest shade, are formed by the mangoe, the banian, and the cotton trees. At the verge of this deep- green forest are to be seen the long and slender hosts of the betle and cocoanut trees; and the grey bark of their trunks, as they catch the light of the morning, is in clear relief from the richness of the back- ground. These as they wave their feathery tops, add much to the picturesque interest of the straw-built hovels beneath them, which are variegated with every tinge to be found amongst the browns and yellows, according to the respective periods of their construction. Some of them are enveloped in blue smoke, which oozes through every interstice of the thatch, and spreads itself, like a cloud hovering over these frail habitations, or moves slowly along, like a strata of vapour not far from the ground, as though too heavy to ascend, and loses itself in the thin air, so inspiring to all who have courage to leave their beds and enjoy it. The champa tree forms a beautiful object in this jungle. It may be recognized immediately from the surrounding scenery. It has always been a favourite with me. I suppose most persons, at times, have been unaccountably attracted by an object comparatively trifling in itself. There are also particular seasons, when the mind is susceptible of peculiar impressions, and the moments of happy, careless youth, rush upon the imagination with a thousand tender feelings. There are few that do not recollect with what pleasure they have grasped a bunch of wild flowers, when, in the days of their childhood, the languor of a lingering fever has prevented them for some weary months from enjoying that chief of all the pleasures of a robust English boy, a ramble through the fields, where every tree, and bush, and hillock, and blossom, are endeared to him, because, next to a mother's caresses, they were the first things in the world upon which he opened his eyes, and, doubtless, the first which gave him those indescribable feelings of fairy pleasure, which even in his dreams were excited; while the coloured clouds of heaven, the golden sunshine of a landscape, the fresh nosegay of dog-roses and early daisies, and the sounds of busy whispering trees and tinkling brooks presented to the sleeping child all the pure pleasure of his waking moments. And who is there here that does not sometimes recal some of those feelings which were his solace perhaps thirty years ago? Should I be wrong, were I to say that even, at his desk, amid all the excitements and anxieties of commercial pursuits, the weary Calcutta merchant has been lulled into a sort of pensive reminiscence of the past, and, with his pen placed between his lips and his fevered forehead leaning upon his hand, has felt his heart bound at some vivid picture rising upon his imagination. The forms of a fond mother, and an almost angel-looking sister, have been so strongly conjured up with the scenes of his boyish days, that the pen has been unceremoniously dashed to the ground, and 'I will go home' was the sigh that heaved from a bosom full of kindness and English feeling; while, as the dream vanished, plain truth told its tale, and the man of commerce is still to be seen at his desk, pale, and getting into years and perhaps less desirous than ever of winding up his concern. No wonder! because the dearest ties of his heart have been broken, and those who were the charm of home have gone down to the cold grave, the home of all. Why then should he revisit his native place? What is the cottage of his birth to him? What charms has the village now for the gentleman just arrived from India? Every well remembered object of nature, seen after a lapse of twenty years, would only serve to renew a host of buried, painful feelings. Every visit to the house of a surviving neighbour would but bring to mind some melancholy incident; for into what house could he enter, to idle away an hour, without seeing some wreck of his own family, such as a venerable clock, once so loved for the painted moon that waxed and waned to the astonishment of the gazer, or some favorite ancient chair, edged so nobly with rows of brass nails,
--but perforated sore, and dull'd in holes
By worms voracious, eating through and through.
These are little things, but they are objects which will live in his memory to the latest day of his life, and with which are associated in his mind the dearest feelings and thoughts of his happiest hours."
Here is an attempt at a description in verse of some of the most common
TREES AND FLOWERS OF BENGAL
This land is not my father land,
And yet I love it--for the hand
Of God hath left its mark sublime
On nature's face in every clime--
Though from home and friends we part,
Nature and the human heart
Still may soothe the wanderer's care--
And his God is every where
Beneath BENGALA'S azure skies,
No vallies sink, no green hills rise,
Like those the vast sea billows make--
The land is level as a lake[111] But, oh, what giants of the wood
Wave their wide arms, or calmly brood
Each o'er his own deep rounded shade
When noon's fierce sun the breeze hath laid,
And all is still. On every plain
How green the sward, or rich the grain!
In jungle wild and garden trim,
And open lawn and covert dim,
What glorious shrubs and flowerets gay,
Bright buds, and lordly beasts of prey!
How prodigally Gunga pours
Her wealth of waves through verdant shores
O'er which the sacred peepul bends,
And oft its skeleton lines extends
Of twisted root, well laved and bare,
Half in water, half in air!
Fair scenes! where breeze and sun diffuse
The sweetest odours, fairest hues--
Where brightest the bright day god shows,
And where his gentle sister throws
Her softest spell on silent plain,
And stirless wood, and slumbering main--
Where the lucid starry sky
Opens most to mortal eye
The wide and mystic dome serene
Meant for visitants unseen,
A dream like temple, air built hall,
Where spirits pure hold festival!
Fair scenes! whence envious Art might steal
More charms than fancy's realms reveal--
Where the tall palm to the sky
Lifts its wreath triumphantly--
And the bambu's tapering bough
Loves its flexile arch to throw--
Where sleeps the favored lotus white,
On the still lake's bosom bright--
Where the champac's[112] blossoms shine,
Offerings meet for Brahma's shrine,
While the fragrance floateth wide
O'er velvet lawn and glassy tide--
Where the mangoe tope bestows
Night at noon day--cool repose,
Neath burning heavens--a hush profound
Breathing o'er the shaded ground--
Where the medicinal neem,
Of palest foliage, softest gleam,
And the small leafed tamarind
Tremble at each whispering wind--
And the long plumed cocoas stand
Like the princes of the land,
Near the betel's pillar slim,
With capital richly wrought and trim--
And the neglected wild sonail
Drops her yellow ringlets pale--
And light airs summer odours throw
From the bala's breast of snow--
Where the Briarean banyan shades
The crowded ghat, while Indian maids,
Untouched by noon tide's scorching rays,
Lave the sleek limb, or fill the vase
With liquid life, or on the head
Replace it, and with graceful tread
And form erect, and movement slow,
Back to their simple dwellings go--
[Walls of earth, that stoutly stand,
Neatly smoothed with wetted hand--
Straw roofs, yellow once and gay,
Turned by time and tempest gray--]
Where the merry minahs crowd
Unbrageous haunts, and chirrup loud--
And shrilly talk the parrots green
'Midst the thick leaves dimly seen--
And through the quivering foliage play,
Light as buds, the squirrels gay,
Quickly as the noontide beams
Dance upon the rippled streams--
Where the pariah[113] howls with fear,
If the white man passeth near--
Where the beast that mocks our race
With taper finger, solemn face,
In the cool shade sits at ease
Calm and grave as Socrates--
Where the sluggish buffaloe
Wallows in mud--and huge and slow,
Like massive cloud of sombre van,
Moves the land leviathan--[114] Where beneath the jungle's screen
Close enwoven, lurks unseen
The couchant tiger--and the snake
His sly and sinuous way doth make
Through the rich mead's grassy net,
Like a miniature rivulet--
Where small white cattle, scattered wide,
Browse, from dawn to even tide--
Where the river watered soil
Scarce demands the ryot's toil--
And the rice field's emerald light
Out vies Italian meadows bright,--
Where leaves of every shape and dye,
And blossoms varied as the sky,
The fancy kindle,--fingers fair
That never closed on aught but air--
Hearts, that never heaved a sigh--
Wings, that never learned to fly--
Cups, that ne'er went table round--
Bells, that never rang with sound--
Golden crowns, of little worth--
Silver stars, that strew the earth--
Filagree fine and curious braid,
Breathed, not labored, grown, not made--
Tresses like the beams of morn
Without a thought of triumph worn--
Tongues that prate not--many an eye
Untaught midst hidden things to pry--
Brazen trumpets, long and bright,
That never summoned to the fight--
Shafts, that never pierced a side--
And plumes that never waved with pride;--
Scarcely Art a shape may know
But Nature here that shape can show.
Through this soft air, o'er this warm sod,
Stern deadly Winter never trod;
The woods their pride for centuries wear,
And not a living branch is bare;
Each field for ever boasts its bowers,
And every season brings its flowers.
D.L.R.
We all "uphold Adam's profession": we are all gardeners, either practically or theoretically. The love of trees and flowers, and shrubs and the green sward, with a summer sky above them, is an almost universal sentiment. It may be smothered for a time by some one or other of the innumerable chances and occupations of busy life; but a painting in oils by Claude or Gainsborough, or a picture in words by Spenser or Shakespeare that shall for ever