But who ever associates flowers with Arabia? Is it the prolonged and baleful influence of that little wood-cut map which monopolized a whole page in infantile geography—the map which presents Arabia arrayed in dots, which we were then and there informed meant desert? Or is it the omnipresent muffled figures, camels, and tents which typify Arabia in all books devoted to juveniles? Whatever the cause, Arabia and Arabians always come to mind sandy and wandering.
Not so the Arabia which Niebuhr traversed in the last part of the last century, with most ample opportunities for information.
Arabia, he writes, enjoys almost constant verdure. It is true, most of the trees shed their leaves, and annual plants wither and are reproduced; but the interval between the fall of old leaves and the reappearance of others is so short that it is scarcely observable.[55]
Here are found most of the plants of two zones. On the high lands, those of Europe and Northern or rather Middle Asia; on the plains, those of India and Africa, not precisely identical with those of Europe, but a different species or variety. Delicious and abundant also are all kinds of tropical fruits; and so plentiful the melons that they serve as food for their camels. From Arabia were also first brought many of those plants which we cultivate as curiosities rather than for beauty—the cactus tribe. One of the most remarkable has its stem expanded to a globular form, about the size of a man's head; this rests on the earth, and from it proceed branches bearing flowers. In seeking for the most showy flowers, we must turn to their forest trees. Their forests are not very extensive, and such as they have are rarely seen by strangers, being quite distant from the usual course of travel. But the majestic height of the trees, covered with bright-colored and fragrant blossoms, are in marked contrast to our own forest trees, whose flowers, generally, can scarcely be distinguished from the leaves. One kind, the keura, is so very fragrant that a small blossom will perfume an entire apartment. Among small sweet plants is the panicratum, something like the sea-daffodil, of the purest white; an hibiscus, of the most brilliant red; and the moscharia, which gives from leaves and flowers the perfume of musk. But a catalogue of their names alone would exceed our limits.
"With these glorious blossoms," says Mr. Niebuhr, "the peasantry retain the ancient custom of crowning themselves on certain days of joy and festivity."
There is poetry in this custom. "It is said that this nation alone has produced more poets than all others united" (Sismondi). Arabia shares more than flowers with the rest of Asia; she, too, joins to them poetry. Her people have the same fertile imagination, aversion to the restraints of cities, love of freedom and of nature, quick feelings and ardent passions, which make the true poet. The day is past—even so long past that they have forgotten it—when all this found expression in compositions, which we read now, and marvel at their rich inventions and glowing imagery; but, nevertheless, they are poets still! A distinguished French author writes:
"Through the whole extent of the Mohammedan dominions, in Turkey, Persia, and even to the extremity of India, a numerous class of Arabs, both men and women, find a livelihood in reciting these tales to crowds who delight to forget their annoyances in the pleasing dreams of imagination. In the coffee-houses of the Levant, one of these men will gather a silent crowd around him, whom he will excite, by his tale, to terror or pity; but more frequently he will picture to his audience those brilliant and fantastic visions which are the patrimony of Eastern imaginations. The public squares of cities abound with these story-tellers, who fill up, too, the dull hours of the seraglio. Physicians recommend them often to their patients, to soothe pain or induce sleep; and those accustomed to the sick modulate their voices and soften their tones as slumber steals over the sufferer."
Seven of the most remarkable old Arabian poems, written in gold, are hung in the Caaba, or Temple, at Mecca; and the authors show themselves not in the least degree behind other orientals in heaping up flowers and metaphors.
Flowers were once held, in Arabia, of high importance in science. Next to the sciences of mathematics, they valued that of medicine; and many volumes were written on their medical plants. Somewhere about the year 941, Aben-al-Beïther made a botanical tour over Europe and Asia, and a part of Africa, and, on his return, published a volume On the Virtues of Plants. Still earlier than this, in 775, Al-Mansour, the second prince of the Abassides, invited a Greek physician to his court, and obtained through him translations of many learned Greek works on medicinal plants. Such are flowers in Asia.
It is no wonder that, where nature has lavished her choicest productions, and all classes delight in cultivating them, flowers have increased ad infinitum. No wonder their brilliant hues inspired a native poet to sing: