We had dropped down with the tide under the “hill of the thousand nightingales,” when they made night vocal with their melody. I shall never forget that hour! It was in the very heart of summer, and, in the West the twilight lingers lovingly upon the earth, as though it were loath to leave a scene of so much beauty: and, in the dim light the wanderer, who moves slowly among the sights and scents of the most luxurious of seasons, may see the chalices of the reviving flowers opening to receive the dew-offering poured forth as if in homage to their beauty; and the tinted lip of every orient blossom uplifted to the grateful touch of the tears of night.—It was at the last hour of daylight; but, in the East, the Giant Darkness overshadows the earth only for an instant in his approach, ere he lays his sable hand on the landscape, and effaces its outline.
I had been passing the day in one of the Palaces that skirt the channel. It was a season of festivity, and my father and myself had shared, with about fifty other guests, the princely hospitality of its owner; we had met early, and, after many hours of excitement and exertion, I felt that craving for mental repose always the most imperative after a lapse of time in which the spirit has been more taxed than the physical strength.
From the supper-room I accordingly strolled into the garden. Daylight was just looking its last over the waters; and already the shadows of the Asian hills were looming long upon their surface. I turned listlessly from the broad path which, overhung with trellised roses, divided the parterre almost in the centre; and, striking into a screened way hedged on either side by a deep belt of evergreens and flowering shrubs, retreated with a rapid step from the immediate neighbourhood of the illuminated saloons that gave upon the garden; and from whose open casements the light laughter and mirthful tones of the guests rang through the evening air. A slight dew was already falling, and the blossoming trees among which I passed were giving out a cool fresh scent as the moisture touched them;—an occasional tuft of violets nestling at their roots flung a rich perfume to the sky; and the faint odour of the far-off orangery which was already invisible in the fading light, came occasionally on the breeze like a gush of incense wafted by the hand of Nature in homage to her God.