Note 448 — VIII

Mrs. Grundy, p. 73 ff., "Ten Days," etc., speaks of the Palace of Joy as a very large white mansion. Professor Browne was received here (1890). He was conducted through a spacious hall, paved with a mosaic of marble, into a great antechamber, and entered through a lifted curtain into a large Audience Room.

Of the Garden of Baha, Sprague ("A Year in India," etc., p. 1) says, "It is a veritable garden of Eden, with luxuriant foliage and every fruit. Baha Ullah used to sit under the large spreading tree and teach his disciples." Mrs. Grundy says, "The Rizwan is filled with palm trees, oranges, lemons and wonderful flowers. A river, the Nahr Naaman, runs through it, in two streams, on which ducks and other fowls swim. On an island is an arbour under two large mulberry trees. A fountain plays in the midst. Under the arbour is a chair where Baha used to sit. No one sits in it any more. (Mrs. Grundy knelt at the foot of the chair.) The garden has a cottage, where Baha spent his summers." A Palace and a luxurious summer place were Baha's "Most Great Prison" during most of his years at Acca. Compare Laurence Oliphant's "Haifa," etc., p. 103, for a fine description of his "pleasure ground." How unfounded are such statements as Bernard Temple's (S. W., p. 39, April 28, 1914). "All this while the founders were behind prison walls."