Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-07-21
SOME FAMOUS GARDENS.
Spots of Beauty and Recreation from
tho Earliost Age

Spots of Beauty and Recreation from
tho Earliest Age.
In Babylon. crowded city built on
a Dat plain, the queens had their gar
dens in the air, hanging, or roof-gar-
dens, whence they could look far away
to the distant skyline. Here rich and
rare blossoms grew and lovely foliage
gave shade and cooler air refreshed
the brow than that of the heated streets
far below.
The rich also had high, terraced gar
gardens, on land, and, sweetest of all,
floating gardens on tho lakes. These
were made on RATS, and in the rich
soil and abundant moisture the flowers
bloomed marvelously, while in the wa
tiers another garden-counterpart OF the
first-bloomed in a fair shadow-world.
In such a garden as this one might
have the enjoyment of movement, Gid
ing slowly over the waves, or rest at
will, moored on the bank.
Another fairy-like garden was the
desert garden in which the royal ladies
Of Persia and Of Egypt delighted. Sur
rounded by burning sands, they yet
contrived, by artificial means, to extend
the waters of some spring in an oasis,
and rear beautiful shrubs and a pro-
fusion of flowers and tender grass,
sprinkling the air continually with
fountains that laughed and played in
%ha i'll ~ hn oh ~
tering such retreat after toilsome
journey on cameIs back in the hot
glare and across the parched sands OF
some desert route. In the great tanks
were cultivated aquatic plants, the To-
tus, or water lily, of the Egyptian river,
with coiling stems and cool, veined
leaves.
The Romans and the Greeks delight
ed in gardens, and those of Pompeii,
the city destroyed so many centuries
ago by volcano, were very gay. The
houses were in perfect accord with the
gardens, and opened upon them. The
halls almost seemed in i-',itation of a
flower-bed, so brilliant were the mosaic
pictures on the floors. 1t is true, the
walls of the houses within were black,
but this was only as a background to
throw into stronger relief the bright
colored decorations upon them.
There were white tablets with in
scriptions, and there were pictures that
told some pleasing story-pictures Of
bright and cheerful colors in which the
red cinnabar predominated. The Pom
peiians loved red; they sometimes
painted the lower part of the columns
in their graceful peristyles or porticos
bright red, leaving the upper part
untouched. You looked through the
portico across the hall and parlor and
perhaps picture room, all open and
CHEEKY, into the little garden beyond
with its trim fower-beds, its little
fountain, its vases on pedestals and
statues in the shrubbery. ....
Illusions and fanciful devices were in
great request. The garden walls were
tinted and painted in perspective, trees,
temples, etc., to produce an appearance
of more space than really existed.
Bronze boys with silver eyes and
nymphs scattering wreaths were favor
tie ornaments. Everything looked
ready for feast.
In Italy, during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, and even later, the
greatest attention was bestowed on gar
dens. These were full of fountains and
little lakes, and winding walks and Dor
ders of flowers, of course, but their
special feature was the resemb lance to
the old gardens of Rome. Their boun-
daries were marked by marble pillars
with sculptured head of Hermes; I'M
der the stately stone-pines were little
temples built in classic style, besides
the streams were grottos with statues
Of water-nymphs and deities, in the
groves you came suddenly upon a
white marble Pan with his pipes or
Apollo and Diana with their bows.