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The suburbs already have been noticed, where in the gardens wheat, barley, ghusub, ghafouly, the flax plant, common vegetables and flowers, a few roses and jessamines, are cultivated, with the noble date-palm overshadowing all. Every garden has its well, or wells. Sweet water is scarce. The spring crops are six weeks in advance of those in Tripoli.

In the spring the dogwood, cherry-trees, and many others blossom, and, together with the jessamines, perfume the air; while the luxuriant vines climb over the loftiest trees, and bushes or shrubs of humbler growth fill up the thicket.

The roses, jessamines, violets, daffodils, hyacinths, anemonies, tulips, pinks, lilies, and an infinite number of flowers, which do not grow in other places but at certain times, were there flourishing all at once, and nothing could be more delicious than the fragrant smell which they emitted.

On approaching the house we halted; and after charging the men to remain silent, I advanced alone to reconnoitre. The lane suddenly opened upon a pasture, but within this a thick hedge of jessamines, forming a circle, barred the view. In this circle was the house, whose roof only could be seen from without.

We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs trim, mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage.

And he knew there would be many a day when he must ache with homesick longing for the coast country, for the tide-water, and the jessamines, and the moon above the pines, and the scent of the bay in flower on summer nights. The world was opening her wide spaces. But the Carolina coast was home.

The old buildings matted with roses, honeysuckles, and jessamines, broken only by the pretty out-door room which Lucy called her greenhouse; the pile of variously tinted geraniums in front of that prettiest room; the wall garlanded, covered, hidden with interwoven myrtles, fuschias, passion-flowers, clematis, and the silky blossoms of the grandiflora pea; the beds filled with dahlias, salvias, calceolarias, and carnations of every hue, with the rich purple and the pure white petunia, with the many-coloured marvel of Peru, with the enamelled blue of the Siberian larkspur, with the richly scented changeable lupine, with the glowing lavatera, the dark-eyed hybiscus, the pure and alabaster cup of the white Oenothera, the lilac clusters of the phlox, and the delicate blossom of the yellow sultan, most elegant amongst flowers; all these, with a hundred other plants too long to name, and all their various greens, and the pet weed mignionette growing like grass in a meadow, and mingling its aromatic odour amongst the general fragrance all this sweetness and beauty glowing in the evening sun, and breathing of freshness and of cool air, came with such a thrill of delight upon the poor village maiden, who, in spite of her admiration of London, had languished in its heat and noise and dirt, for the calm and quiet, the green leaves and the bright flowers of her country home, that, from the very fulness of her heart, from joy and gratitude and tenderness and anxiety, she flung her arms round her brother's neck and burst into tears.

As the ponderous door swung open, it was pleasant to hear the lulling sound of a fountain, which came forth with a gentle patter, like that of soft summer rain, and to see the waving of rose-bushes and golden jessamines, and smell the perfumes of orange-blossoms mingling with those of a thousand other flowers. The door was opened by an odd-looking portress.

Little Trüey was delighted to see so many beautiful flowers. There were bright scarlet geraniums, and starlike sweet-scented jessamines, and the gorgeous belladonna lily, with its large blossoms of rose-colour and white; and there were not only plants in flower, but bushes, and even trees, covered with gaudy and sweetly-perfumed blossoms.

The trees uniting their branches over my head, formed a verdant canopy, and cast a most refreshing shade; under my feet lay a carpet of Nature's velvet; grass intermingled with moss, and embroidered with the evening dew; jessamines, united with woodbines, twined around the trees, displaying their artless beauties to the eye, and diffusing their delicious sweets through the air.