Everywhere overhead the date-palms and the cocoanut-palms meet and form a series of leafy arcades, throwing a canopy over the undergrowth, protecting it from the scorching rays of the sun. This undergrowth consists of hedgerows of bamboos, hibiscus, and alamanders, intersected by avenues of date and cocoanut-palms, alcoves in shady corners, pergolas shrouded with creepers leading out of mysterious paths and by-ways, groves of phœnix-palms and bananas, thickets of scarlet geraniums, and large clearings filled with fan-palms. Everywhere is the music of running water rippling as it flows through its tortuous channels, distributing life and luxuriance in its path.
It is difficult to enumerate all the trees which give so much charm to the garden, but I must not forget the acacias, gums, indiarubber trees, eucalyptus, and many varieties of mimosa.
The garden is thrown open to the public upon a small payment, and forms one of the great attractions of Biskra. It is difficult to conceive a more wonderful contrast than that between the luxuriant tropical vegetation of the Count's garden and the arid, sandy wastes of the Sahara with which it is surrounded, and out of which indeed it has been created. It was amusing to run across in out-of-the-way nooks and corners so many people diligently reading, and it was always the same book, the Garden of Allah.
Egypt.
There is probably no country so fascinating to the traveller as Egypt. It is not merely that it is Oriental and picturesque, but it is a Bible land and the seat of the early dawn of civilisation. Its explorers have made discoveries out of which they have been enabled to build up the history of an ancient and most remarkable people; and while the traveller beholds in wonder the gigantic proportions of pyramid, pylon and temple, he is fascinated by the story which recent discoveries have woven around them. One cannot visit Egypt without becoming an Egyptologist in a small way. My two visits to Assouan gave me a very good grasp of the centuries of history rolled up within the Nile valley, and enabled me to deliver on my return several lectures in the Picton Lecture Hall in connection with our course of free lectures.
Things have been changed very much in Egypt. The lovely island of Philæ, with its Ptolemean temple, is submerged, and the valley of the Nile has changed its character by the raising of its waters. Cairo has become the pilgrimage of the fashionable, and much of what was primitive and interesting has been improved away, but still the Egypt of history remains, and will remain, to charm and fascinate with its spell of romance—its reverence for the dead and the grandeur of its religious rites and ceremonies.
Impressions of India.
India awakens within us such a sense of vastness and distance, and so strongly appeals to our imagination, that one is much tempted to write at length that others may enter into our enjoyment of a country and a people so great, so picturesque, and so remarkable. It was this feeling which prompted me, while in India, to write a series of letters to the Liverpool Daily Post. These letters are too long to be reproduced here, and I must, therefore, confine myself to a brief résumé of our impressions of India. The first thing which almost staggers the imagination is the extent of our Indian Empire.
