Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/158

 acclivities of those effective pieces of rockwork which form so prominent a feature in artificial landscapes. The coup d'œil formed by these masses of peach, apricot, and wild cherry, all in fullest and softest bloom, has been justly called enchanting, and must be seen to be appreciated. Peach-trees also form a very beautiful feature of many natural landscapes in China, and were celebrated during the Sung dynasty by the great historian Ssŭ-ma Kuang, who in some charming verses described the eye of the spectator as being guided by a colossal garland of peach-blossoms, connecting the numerous villages that were dotted over the spreading plains of Lo-yang. The neighbourhood of the Hsi-hu, or Western Lake, near Hangchow, was famous for its wealth of peach-trees, and the greatest care has always been bestowed upon their cultivation. The fruit of the full-sized tree is handsome, though somewhat poor in flavour. Its shape is varied, some specimens being fully spherical, others prolate, others a curiously oblate spheroid—called by foreigners "flat" peaches—while others again are pointed and even hooked. The same diversity prevails in the colour of the pulp, the fruits varying from white and pale green to rich ruby, orange-yellow, and marbled tints.

The peach is said to have reached China in the first instance from Persia, Thibet, Samarcand, and Hami, and to have existed here at any rate for upward of two thousand years. The Emperor Wu Ti of the Han dynasty was presented by his courtiers with a number of foreign seedlings for his garden; the belles lettres of all the great dynasties abound in allusions, poetical and otherwise, to the beauty of its flowers, while histories record the fact that peach-trees or their fruit formed part of the tribute