"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?" "An impenetrable veil is to be found in that bower, overarched with honeysuckle and ivy; or in that cool grotto, where a crystal fountain gushes out of artificial rocks into a basin of marble; or in that covered walk with its trellises of clustering vines; or on the sofa, pillowed with soft moss, in the rustic reed-house by the pond; nor will any of these secret shrines afford lodging for destructive worms, and buzzing insects, or keep away the wafting air, or shut up the free prospect, as the gloomy grove of tamarinds did." "But why hast thou planted sage, and hyssop which grows upon the wall, here on this spot where formerly the precious balm-tree of Mecca bloomed?" "Because the Sultan wanted no Arabian, but a European garden. In Italy, and in the German gardens of the Nuernbergers, no dates are ripened, nor does any balm-tree of Mecca bloom." To this last argument no answer could be made. As neither the Shiek nor any of the Heathen in Cairo had ever been at Nuernberg, he had nothing for it but to take this version of the garden from Arabic into German, on the word of the interpreter. Only, he could not bring himself to think that the present horticultural reform had been managed by the pattern of the Paradise, appointed by the Prophet for believing Mussulmans; and, allowing the pretension to be true, he promised to himself, from the joys of the future life, no very special consolation. There was nothing for him, therefore, but, in the way above mentioned, to shake his head, contemplatively squirt a dash of liquid out over his beard, and go the way whence he had come.