byrinth at Hampton Court. The hedges should be a little
above a man's height and the paths should be just wide enough for two
persons abreast. The ground should be kept scrupulously clean and well
rolled and the hedges well trimmed, or in this country the labyrinth
would soon be damp and unwholesome, especially in the rains. To prevent
its affording a place of refuge and concealment for snakes and other
reptiles, the gardener should cut off all young shoots and leaves within
half a foot of the ground. The centre building should be a tasteful
summer-house, in which people might read or smoke or take refreshments.
To make the labyrinth still more intricate Mr. Loudon suggests that
stop-hedges might be introduced across the path, at different places, as
indicated in the figure by dotted lines.[110]

[Illustration of A GARDEN LABYRINTH with a scale in feet.]

Of strictly Oriental trees and shrubs and flowers, perhaps the majority
of Anglo Indians think with much less enthusiasm than of the common
weeds of England. The remembrance of the simplest wild flower of their
native fields will make them look with perfect indifference on the
decorations of an Indian Garden. This is in no degree surprizing. Yet
nature is lovely in all lands.

Indian scenery has not been so much the subject of description in either
prose or verse as it deserves, but some two or three of our Anglo-Indian
authors have touched upon it. Here is a pleasant and truthful passage
from an article entitled "_A Morning Walk in India_," written by the
late Mr. Lawson, the Missionary, a truly good and a highly gifted man:--

"The rounded clumps that afford the deepest shade, are formed by the
mangoe, the banian, and the cotton trees. At the verge of this deep-green
forest are to be seen the long and slender hosts of the betle and
cocoanut trees; and the grey bark of their trunks, as they catch the
light of the morning, is in clear relief from the richness of the
back-ground. These as they wave their feathery tops, add much to the
picturesque interest of the straw-built hovels beneath them, which are
variegated with every tinge to be found amongst the browns and yellows,
according to the respective periods of their construction. Some of them
are enveloped in blue smoke, which oozes through every interstice of the
thatch, and spreads itself, like a cloud hovering over these frail
habitations, or moves slowly along, like a strata of vapour not far from
the ground,