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There are also gardens for all the gorgeous flowers of Java: the frangipani, the wax-white, gold-centered flower of the dead, the red and yellow lantanas, the scarlet poinsetta, the crimson bougainvillea, and others in bewildering variety.

The stem of the octagonal tiled fountain was of time-worn, creamy marble; the white house was draped with cascades of wistaria, and pale pink bougainvillea; underneath the shadow of the overhanging balcony ran wall-seats covered and backed with charming old tiles of blue and white "ribbon" design; on them were spread white woollen, black-striped rugs delicately woven by Kabyle women; Tuareg cushions of stamped leather, and pillows of brilliant purple and gold brocade silk.

It is often difficult to tell what the architecture is, or what is house and what is vegetation; for all angles, and lattices, and balustrades, and verandahs are hidden by jessamine or passion-flowers, or the gorgeous flame-like Bougainvillea.

The low gray adobe walls of the houses fronting directly upon the narrow winding streets leading to and from the plaza were gay with the blossoms of the pink and scarlet geranium, honeysuckle, and gorgeous magenta of the bougainvilléa and golden cups of the trumpet-vine.

The fan-shaped, water-hoarding traveller's palm formed a background for the brilliant magenta-colored bougainvillea. The dim, translucent depths of an orchid-house lured us on, or a great pond covered with the sacred lotus, blue lilies, and the flush-colored cups of the superb Victoria regia commanded our admiration. Palms, flowering shrubs, ferns, and creepers rioted on all sides.

Hedges of scarlet hibiscus flamed ten feet high, clusters of purple bougainvillea poured down from cottage-porches, while oleander in radiant bloom formed a hedge twenty feet high for as much as half a mile at a stretch.

And in spite of all fears I have just heard he did get home to see his people, and by his cheerful courage to rob Death of all his terrors. Up the wide stone steps, under the arch of purple Bougainvillea and you are in my operating theatre. A curtain of mosquito gauze screens it from the vulgar gaze. Behind these big wooden doors a week ago was the office of this erstwhile German jail.

A second later a motor-car shot out from the line and took the road to Tarragona. Hillyard was inside the car. The tall houses of the city gave place to villas draped in bougainvillea behind gardens of trees. Then the villas ceased and the car sped across the flats of Llobegrat and climbed to the finest coast-road in the world. It was a night for lovers.

It returned and swept about the narrow streets, eddying at the corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which the painted dancing-girls were cowering, cold under their pigments and their heavy jewels, their red hands trembling and clasping one another, clamouring about the minarets of the mosques on which the frightened doves were sheltering, shaking the fences that shut in the gazelles in their pleasaunce, tearing at the great statue of the Cardinal that faced it resolutely, holding up the double cross as if to exorcise it, battering upon the tall, white tower on whose summit Domini had first spoken with Androvsky, raging through the alleys of Count Anteoni's garden, the arcades of his villa, the window-spaces of the fumoir, from whose walls it tore down frantically the purple petals of the bougainvillea and dashed them, like enemies defeated, upon the quivering paths which were made of its own body.

Yes, here are my three friends, in the quaint little garden of the hotel, with its purple-flowering vines of Bougainvillea, fragrant orange-trees, drooping palms, and long-tailed cockatoos drowsing on their perches. When people really know each other an unfamiliar meeting-place lends a singular intimacy and joy to the meeting.