Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/174

170 beautiful, than the aspect of these rose-fields. The air, filled with the sweetest emanations, makes you aware of your approach to them before you come in sight, surrounded as they are, by thick, live hedges, intended to guard the young buds from the inclement winds. An air of festival spread all around, proclaims that this is no vulgar field-work. Hundreds of young girls, dressed as if for a village holiday, commence the gathering with appropriate songs. The first time I witnessed this novel harvest, it seemed like a dream. I became doubtful, whether I stood on Batavian ground. The ethereal sweetness inhaled in every breeze, the earth covered as it were, with a green carpet, embroidered with roses, the melodious voices of so many young and beautiful girls, would have indeed wafted the imagination to the milder regions of Greece or Italy, but that the azure eyes, and golden hair of the pretty Rosières, proclaimed them of the Norman race. These roses, gathered in Holland, strange as it may appear, are shipped to Constantinople, destined to return to Europe, so concentrated by chemical art, that the perfume of 10,000 is often used by a lady, to scent her embroidered handkerchief. The roses are packed up in large hogsheads, and in alternate layers of flowers and salt, pressed with great force." "At Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, the Hague, but above all at Harlaem, the floral city, crowds of all classes of society, assemble at the flower-markets, which are held twice a week. There the rich attends,