"And here, though sorely pressed for time, we must stop for a picnic, which E---- and myself were told it would be right to give. We provided carpets, nargillehs, horse-loads of sundries, cushions, a cargo of lettuces; and thus equipped, we sallied out, a very numerous party. The first thing to select was a garden, a point on which our own choice, and not the owner's will, seemed alone to be consulted. Let not the reader fancy an Eastern garden is what a warm Western fancy would paint it--wild with luxuriant but weedless verdure, heavy with the scent of roses and jessamine, thrilling with the songs of the bulbul and the nightingale, where fair women with plaited tresses touch the soulful lute in graceful attitudes. No; it is a piece of ground enclosed by high walls, varying in size. A wretched gate, invariably badly made, probably ruined, admits you to the interior. Some enclose a house with two or three rooms--windowless, white-washed places. Before this is a reservoir of dirty, stagnant water, turned up from a neighbouring well by an apparatus as rude as it is ungainly and laborious: this is used to irrigate the ground, which therefore is alternately mud and dust. Fruit trees or mulberries are planted in rows, and the ground beneath, being ploughed up, is productive of vegetables or corn. One or two trees, for ornament, may be planted in the first row, but nothing more; and weeds, uncut, undestroyed, spring up in every direction. Such, without exaggeration, is the _Bistan zareff quiess!_--the Lovely Garden. "We selected one that belonged to the Mollah. Oh, true believer! in thy pot we boiled a ham; on thy divan we ate the forbidden beast; thy gardener, for base reward, assisting to cook--who knows, but also to eat the same? We chose a spot shaded by a noble walnut tree, and spread carpets and cushions. Fire was lighted, nargillehs bubbled, and kief began."