Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 350, 22 January 1903, Page 7

Traveller.

WHBEE PEEPUMBS COME FBQM. ttJRHOUGH the the rose gardens of ys,\a India and Bulgaria are famous, ObLs and famish, to the world a great ■ " portion of "attar of roses, that oil which is so essential to the making of perfumes, yet iksß that pprtion of it situated south of the maritime range of iskncfcwn as the flower garden of the #e*ld;r Norain fallßXhere from March until September. Here the village of Orasse is situated, and fox miles and miles around nothing but a vista of flower gardens can be seen. ••*' Women as well as men work ou these flower farms, which are ownetf not altogether by the big perfume manufacturer?, who have establishments here, but by small farmers, who sell the flowers by the pound to the manufacturers. That this flower industry is an old, old one is proved by the fact that in the little village of Grasse one firm h'aßo-hiid' : "a v factory for manufacturing perfumes since 1768.

Masses-op Bosbs. .. ~- X In the rose gardens about 7,000 plants are required to each acre, and thesa yield about 50,000 pounds of roses. It is astonishing to know that it requires: one whole acre of roses make one ounce of pure perfume. The rose gardens require a sunny slope and much irrigation. The rose bushes are cut down to the ground each year, and the plants obtain enormous age. The flowers are picked each morning before the dew hps had time to evaporate, becaure it is then they hold the most perfume. In great baskets the flowers are taken to the factory, where they are dumped into big copper stills that hold half a barrel of water each. Then comes the distilling process, which results in a rose water. Then this rose water itself is distilled, and on top of the fluid which arises from this process float oily drops. These are very precious drops, and aire collected with .the greatest possible care, for they are the essential oil of the rose—what is known as attar pf rose. . *v ■ Extbacting the Pebftjhe.

The violet farms also require constant irrigation. The plants are generally grown in fields where orange and lemon trees are planted, as the shade of the trees is of benefit to the growth Of the flower. The violets are planted in row?; so that they can be gathered without treading upon them. . But the and jfche gathering of the flowers 'Hs bfit| the* *fi>st» ?step,:in the ! making of perfumes.' ;■'After the flowers have been grown and* gathered, then a pomade is made by allowing the flowers to lie in contact with a thia layer cf very pure fat, made by mixing suitable proportions of lard and suet after they nave been carefully purified. In some cases the fat is melted, and the flowers are dipped into it. But tuberoses and jasmin are too delicate for such treatment, and it is necessary to use the cold grease in order to obtain a satisfactory product. ~ The pomades made in this way aratheh melted carefully and runf into tins con-' taming ten or eleven pounds, and in this form are sent all over the world. When received by the manufacturing perfamer they are removed from the tins and 'washed' with deodorised alcohol, which takes up from the grease the odoriferous substances of the flowers. Fbom all pabts of the Wobld. The 'washing' so obtained is made the basis of all perfumes, and to it are added different oils and substances, which are derived from all parts of the world. '"'.:li§Hjk,! which is such an essential ingredient' of perfumes, is obtained from the mountain ranges which extend northward through India, Thibet, and into Eusaia. It is' in these* mountains the {beautiful little musk dee* is found. From off the coast of China and Japan ambergris.can be found floating on the. water. From Bulgaria and southern France rose oil is obtained, From Southern Europe come,, such products as are derived from, orange and.lemon., ; v > England prMuces lavender in the greatest perfection. From the extreme north of the American continent come caster fibre, used as a substitute for musk in some of the cheaper perfumes, and so on, all parts of the world contributing something to the different perfumes.

LEGATION; LADIES.AT PEKIN. The correspondent of the New York • Commercial Advertiser,' writing from Pekin, says-that; the once rare meetings of the legation ladies and the members of the Imperial Family are now common occurrences. The latest event ;o£ this sort was the Joy -'the Imperial Princesses of: the ladies of the American legation and four ladies from the American mission as interpreters, in recognition of a similar courtesy which Mrs. Conger ex. tendejt io .them, recently. Offioial chairs alike by those who were not entitled to them, and, the procession made abrave ofjjen go about in official car»|f|b|fe|Mte tjat they ?'are unofficial, £fl£m wheal-, they are looted property bands about them a gort ofmonument to the officials who once owned them. Besides the Imperial Princesses there were eight or nine of lower rank wborhadbeen received by Mrs. Conger, and Miss Huang, whose translationof Young-shou's high-flown speech of welcome went entirely over the heads of the American ladies. On this momentous day Mrs. Conger received from the Empress two black dogs, named in person by her majesty, one to be forever known as the Black Unicorn and the other as the Stygian Tiger. When at the Palace* reception one of the American ladieKeiplained to her majesty that she had been the possessor of a Forbidden City dog during the 'vacation' of the court, but that it had pined and died. Miss Huang translated this tale in such a way that the empress wept at the right moment, but instead of understanding the facts as they were recited, sbe understood the lady to be asking for lapdogs for all the legation ladies \ She regretted that as thieves had filched the new crop she- had none to -'give' ; fchem.This is the current story and vouched for b> the ladies themselves. The other ladies -received as souvenirs larpe c tton bandana handkerchiefs mada in Perkinsville,Ct.,at forty-eight cents per dozen, and printed in loud colours on one side. They flaunt these in their houses. But it is an humble person who cannot boast of a gift of some sort from the 'Empress I nowadays.

. • : '" Egypt. ]jjgyptis shown by the latest census to enjoy the singular pre-eminence of being the one conntryin the worjd; so far;as is known, where m|>nlire in a inajoiityiovei: women. The male sex in the dominions of the Khedjve exoeeds the female by 160,000. It Is a curiouß circumstance that this numerical predominerice of the male is very evenly distributed over both UppT and Lower the sparsely peopled and newly recovered Province of that the women are more numercus than the men. A. little more fcban one-half per eent. of the women know how to read and write.