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Ch. I.]
The Emperor Napoleon.
7

Our cottage was built in the style of the bungalows in India; it was very low, the rooms being chiefly on one floor, and, and it not been for its situation, would not have been thought so pretty; but surrounded, as this verdant spot was, by barren mountains, it looked a perfcet little paradise—an Eden blooming in the midst of desolation. A beautiful avenue of banyan trees led up to it, and either side was flanked by ever green and gigantic lacos, interspersed with pomegranate and myrtle, and a profusion of large white roses, much resembling our sweetbriar, from which, indeed, the place derived its name. A walk, shaded by pomegranate trees, thirty or forty feet in height, conducted to the garden.

I must plead the same excuse for devoting a few lines to the garden that I have to the cottage, for it was lovely in itself, and the favourite retreat of the emperor during his sojourn with us. It would re-