I have spoken, in my little work on Portugal, of the beauty of the wild flowers in that country, but I found that those of Asia even transcended them. Delicate flowing shrubs, herbs of delicious perfume, and blossoms of every dye, were about our path: the bright lilac-coloured gum-cistus, with a drop of gold in its centre—the snowy privet, with its scented cone—the wild hollyhock—the bindweed, as transparent and as variously coloured as in an European parterre—the mallow, with its pale petals of pink and white—the turquoise, as blue as a summer sky, and as large as a field-daisy—the foxglove, springing from amid the rocky masses by the wayside, like virtue struggling with adversity, and seeming doubly beautiful from the contrast; the bright yellow blossom which owes to its constantly vibrating petals the vulgar name of “woman’s tongue”—the sweet-scented purple starch-flower—wild roses, woodbine, and, above all, the passion-flower, somewhat smaller than that cultivated in Europe, but retaining perfectly its pale tints and graceful character, were mingled with a thousand others that were new to me. Upon one spot on this plain I saw the richest clump of vegetation that I ever met with in my life, it was a small mound near the road-side, covered with dwarf aloes and arum; I made one of the seridjhes tear up a plant of the latter for me to examine, and it was perfectly gigantic; the blossom measured eighteen inches from the base of the calyx to the extremity of the petal; the colour was a deep, rich ruby, and the stem was five or six feet in height. I need scarcely add that the stench which it emitted was intolerable, and we were obliged to rub our hands with wild chamomile to rid ourselves of it. The butterflies were small, sober-coloured, and scarce; but the birds which surrounded us were various and interesting—the bulfinch, the elegant black-cap, the nightingale, making the air vocal; and the cuckoo, whose sharp, quick note cut shrilly through the sweet song with which it could not assimilate—the skylark, revelling in light, and drinking in the sunshine—the partridge, half hidden amid the corn, or winging its way along the valley, kept us constant company; while the majestic storks sailed over our heads, with their long thin legs folded back, and their long thin necks stretched forward, steering themselves by their feet; or remained, gravely standing near the road-side, eyeing us as we passed with all the confidence of impunity.