“Why, it’s like home exactly—I mean England—only everything’s bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.” The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane admitted that it was all very pretty. “I’m certain there’s nothing to be frightened of here,” said Anthea. “I don’t know,” said Jane. “I suppose the fruit-trees go on just the same even when people are killing each other. I didn’t half like what the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose they have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn’t one.” “Of course it isn’t,” said Cyril. “The hanging gardens are just gardens hung up—_I_ think on chains between houses, don’t you know, like trays. Come on; let’s get somewhere.” They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchard was another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream of clear water. They jumped this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond of gardening—which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work—was able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and then the children had to cross another brook. “It’s like between the squares in _Through the Looking-glass_,” said Anthea. At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other orchards. It had a low building in one corner. “These are vines,” said Cyril superiorly, “and I know this is a vineyard. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a wine-press inside that place over there.” At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, like those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or near Littlehampton, if you’ve only been as far as that. And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among green orchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the early morning sun. The wall was enormously high—more than half the height of St Paul’s—and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone like gold as the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower on each side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyond the wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and bright colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall. “Those feathery things along by the water are palms,” said Cyril instructively.