727. Gardening in Asia, as an art of design and taste, is the same as it ever has been within the records of human knowledge. It differs chiefly from that of Europe in the absence of turf, and of open gravel walks; the heat of the climate preventing the growth of the one, and rendering unsuitable the use of the other. The outlines of a garden, nearly 3000 years ago, coincide with the gardens formed in the same countries at the present day. Maundrell in the fourteenth century, Chardin in the seventeenth, Russell in the eighteenth, and Morier in the nineteenth centuries, enumerate the same trees and plants mentioned by Moses, Diodorus, and Herodotus, without any additions. The same elevation of site for the palace (fig. 206.), the same terraces in front of it, and the same walls and towers surrounding the whole for security, still prevail as in the time of Solomon and his successors. As an art of culture, the gardening of Asia, like that of all hot countries, is characterised by the use of surface irrigation. We shall notice the different countries in the order of Asia Minor, Persia, Arabia, Hindostan, Ceylon, the Birman empire, Borneo, Java, Malacca, Siam, Cochin-China, Singapore, Japan, and the Chinese empire.
