Gardens at Bombay, he says:--"A true Persian in flowing robe of blue,
and on his head his sheep-skin hat--black, glossy, curled, the fleece of
Kar-Kal--would saunter in, and stand and meditate over every flower he
saw, and always as if half in vision. And when the vision was fulfilled,
and the ideal flower he was seeking found, he would spread his mat and
sit before it until the setting of the sun, and then pray before it, and
fold up his mat again and go home. And the next night, and night after
night, until that particular flower faded away, he would return to it,
and bring his friends in ever-increasing troops to it, and sit and play
the guitar or lute before it, and they would all together pray there,
and after prayer still sit before it sipping sherbet, and talking the
most hilarious and shocking scandal, late into the moonlight; and so
again and again every evening until the flower died. Sometimes, by way
of a grand finale, the whole company would suddenly rise before the
flower and serenade it, together with an ode from Hafiz, and depart."

Tree-worship too has been more or less prevalent among the American
Indians, abundant illustrations of which have been given by travellers
at different periods. In many cases a striking similarity is noticeable,
showing a common origin, a circumstance which is important to the
student of comparative mythology when tracing the distribution of
religious beliefs. The Dacotahs worship the medicine-wood, so called
from a belief that it was a genius which protected or punished them
according to their merits or demerits.[21] Darwin[22] mentions a tree
near Siena de la Ventana to which the Indians paid homage as the altar
of Walleechu; offerings of cigars, bread, and meat having been suspended
upon it by threads. The tree was surrounded by bleached bones of horses
that had been sacrificed. Mr. Tylor[23] speaks of an ancient cypress
existing in Mexico, which he thus describes:--"All over its branches
were fastened votive offerings of the Indians, hundreds of locks of