In the mean time, as Shiek Kiamel, Overseer of the Gardens and favourite of the Sultan, was diligently stimulating him to begin the work, he required fifty slaves, as necessary for the execution of his enterprise. Next morning at dawn, they were all ready, and passed muster before their new commander, who as yet saw not how he should employ a man of them. But how great was his joy as he perceived the mottled Kurt and the ponderous Groom, his two companions of misfortune, ranked among the troop! A hundredweight of lead rolled off his heart, the wrinkle of dejection vanished from his brow, and his eyes were enlightened, as if he had dipt his staff in honey and tasted thereof. He led the trusty Squire aside, and frankly informed him into what a heterogeneous element he had been cast by the caprices of fate, where he could neither fly nor swim; nor could he in the least comprehend what enigmatical mistake had exchanged his knightly sword with the gardener's spade. No sooner had he done speaking, than the mettled Kurt, with wet eyes, fell at his feet, then lifted up his voice and said: "Pardon, dear master! It is I that have caused your perplexity and your deliverance from the rascally Grated Tower, which has kept you so long in ward. Be not angry that the innocent deceit of your servant has brought you out of it; be glad rather that you see God's sky again above your head. The Sultan required a garden after the manner of the Franks, and had proclamation made to all the Christian captives in the Bazam, that the proper man should step forth, and expect great recompense if the undertaking prospered. No one of them durst meddle with it; but I recollected your heavy durance. Then some good spirit whispered me the lie of announcing you as an adept in the art of gardening, and it has succeeded perfectly. And now never vex yourself about the way of managing the business: the Sultan, like the great people of the world, has a fancy not for something better than he has already, but for something different, that may be new and singular. Therefore, delve and devastate, and cut and carve, in this glorious field, according to your pleasure; and depend upon it, everything you do or purpose will be right in his eyes."
This speech was as the murmur of a running brook in the ears of a tired wanderer in the desert. The Count drew balsam to his soul from it, and courage to commence with boldness the ungainly undertaking. He set his men to work at random, without plan; and proceeded with the well-ordered shady park, as one of your "bold geniuses" proceeds with an antiquated author, who falls into his creative hands, and, nill he will he, must submit to let himself be modernised, that is to say, again made readable and likeable; or as a new pedagogue with the ancient forms of the Schools. He jumbled in variegated confusion what he found before him, making all things different, nothing better. The profitable fruit-trees he rooted out, and planted rosemary and valerian, and exotic shrubs, or scentless amaranths, in their stead. The rich soil he dug away, and coated the naked bottom with many-coloured gravel, which he carefully stamped hard, and smoothed like a threshing-floor, that no blade of grass might spring in it. The whole space he divided into various terraces, which he begirt with a hem of green; and through these a strangely-twisted flower-bed serpentised along, and ended in a knot of villanously-smelling boxwood. And as from his ignorance of botany, he paid no heed to the proper seasons for sowing and planting, his garden project hovered for a long time between life and death, and had the aspect of a suit of clothes à feuille mourante.
Shiek Kiamel, and the Sultan himself, allowed the Western gardener to take his course, without deranging his conception by their interference or their dictatorial opinion, and by premature hypercriticism interrupting the procedure of his horticultural genius. In this they acted more wisely than our obstreperous public, which, from our famous philanthropic scheme of sowing acorns, expected in a summer or two a stock of strong oaks, fit to be masts for three-deckers; while the plantation was as yet so soft and feeble, that a few frosty nights might have sent it to destruction. Now, indeed, almost in the middle of the second decade of years from the commencement of the enterprise, when the first fruits must certainly be over-ripe, it were in good season for a German Kiamel to step forward with the question: "Planter, what art thou about? Let us see what thy delving, and the loud clatter of thy cars and wheelbarrows have produced?" And if the plantation stood before him like that of the Gleichic Garden at Grand Cairo, in the sere and yellow leaf, then were he well entitled, after due consideration of the matter, like the Shiek, to shake his head in silence, to spit a squirt through his teeth, and think within himself: If this be all, it might have stayed as it was. For one day, as the gardener was surveying his new creation with contentment, sitting in judgment on himself, and pronouncing that the work praised the master, and that, everything considered, it had fallen out better than he could have anticipated, his whole ideal being before his eyes, not only what was then, but what was to be made of it,—the Overseer, the Sultan's favourite, stept into the garden, and said: "Frank, what art thou about? And how far art thou got with thy labour?" The Count easily perceived that the produce of his genius would now have to stand a rigorous criticism; however, he had long been ready for this accident. He collected all his presence of mind, and answered confidently: "Come, sir, and see! This former wilderness has obeyed the hand of art, and is now moulded, after the pattern of Paradise, into a scene which the Houris would not disdain to select for their abode." The Shiek, hearing a professed artist speak with such apparent warmth and satisfaction of his own performance, and giving the master credit for deeper insight in his own sphere than he himself possessed, restrained the avowal of his discontentment with the whole arrangement, modestly ascribing this dislike to his inacquaintance with foreign taste, and leaving the matter to rest on its own basis. Nevertheless, he could not help putting one or two questions, for his own information; to which the garden satrap was not in the least behindhand with his answers.
"Where are the glorious fruit-trees," began the Shiek, "which stood on this sandy level, loaded with peaches and sweet lemons, which solaced the eye, and invited the promenader to refreshing enjoyment?"
"They are all hewn away by the surface, and their place is no longer to be found."
"And why so?"
"Could the garden of the Sultan admit such trash of trees, which the commonest citizen of Cairo cultivates, and the fruit of which is offered for sale by assloads every day?"
"What moved thee to desolate the pleasant grove of dates and tamarinds, which was the wanderer's shelter against the sultry noontide, and gave him coolness and refection under the vault of its shady boughs?"
"What has shade to do in a garden which, while the sun shoots forth scorching beams, stands solitary and deserted, and only exhales its balsamic odours when fanned by the cool breeze of evening?"
"But did not this grove cover, with an impenetrable veil, the secrets of love, when the Sultan, enchanted by the charms of a fair Circassian, wished to hide his tenderness from the jealous eyes of her companions?"