become ripe, and are gathered in August and the two succeeding months.

Besides the vine bearing good grapes, there appears to be a wild vine growing in Egypt, that is, the solanum incanum, or the hoary night-shade. Hasselquist says, that the Arabs calí this plant aneb el dib, or "wolf grapes;" that it grows much in the vineyards, and is very pernicious to them, and that it likewise resembles a vine by its shrubby stalk.

The Cypress.-The cypress, cupressus sempervirens, appears to have been indigenous to Egypt; for we learn from history that coffins and mummy cases were made of its wood. The tree is too well known, being cultivated in our own country to a considerable degree of perfection, to need description.

The Pomegranate. The punica granatum, or pomegranate tree, in its native state, is a lowly shrub, about eight or ten feet in height, extremely bushy and covered with thorns; when cultivated, however, it is nearly twice that size, more especially in the south of Europe. The flowers differ in different varieties, and while the fruit of the wild plant is only about the size of a walnut, that of the cultivated tree is larger than the largest apple. This is filled with seeds imbedded in a red pulp, which is the part eaten. It seems to have been highly esteemed by the ancients, for we find the Hebrews specifying it as one of the luxuries they had lost by leaving Egypt; and it is enumerated by Moses, with wheat, barley, etc., as a recommendation of the promised land, Deut viii. 8.

The Date Palm.-This tree is an evergreen, and, to attain perfection, it requires a hot climate, with a sandy soil, yet humid, and somewhat nitreous. Hence, its favourite place is along the rivers which border the hot and sandy deserts, and beside old wells, in the very heart of the desert itself; a circumstance which renders the distant prospect of it a delight to the wanderer in those parched regions, from the assurance of water which it conveys. Mariti says that this tree grows to the height of a man in five or six years' growth; and this is a very rapid growth, if we consider that the trunk rises from the ground of a thickness which never increases. It appears to have been cultivated in Egypt in all ages of the world, and at the present day trees of this kind are very abundant there. Clarke says that the natives are chiefly engaged in the care of them, tying up their blossoms with bands formed of the foliage, to prevent their being torn off, and scattered by the wind.

The trunk of the date palm tree served for beams, either

entire or split in half: while the gereet, or branches, were, as they are now, used in making wicker baskets, bedsteads, coops, and ceilings of rooms, answering for every purpose for which laths or other thin wood-work might be required.

The Doum Palm.-Instead of one trunk without branches, the doum throws up two trunks, or more properly, branches, at the same time from the soil. From each of these spring two branches, which are also frequently bifurcated more towards the top of the tree. The terminal branches are crowned with bundles of from twenty to thirty palm leaves from six to nine feet in length. The fruit of the doum is most essentially different from that of the date palm. The tree grows in Upper Egypt, but seldom in the lower country. The wood is more solid than that of the date palm, and will even bear to be cut into planks, of which the doors in Upper Egypt are frequently made.

Barley.-Of all cultivated grain, barley comes to perfection in the greatest variety of climates, and is consequently found over the greatest extent of the habitable globe. The heat and the drought of tropical climates does not destroy it, and it ripens in the short summers of those which verge on the frigid zone. In Egypt, were the climate is mild, two crops may be reaped in the same year; one in the spring from seed sown in the autumn, and one in the autumn from seed sown in the spring. This explains a passage in Scripture, which speaks of the destruction of this plant in one of the ten plagues, Exod. ix. 31, 32. Commentators are generally agreed that this even happened in March: the first crop of barley was therefore nearly ripe, and the flax ready to gather; but the wheat and the rye sown in spring were not sufficiently advanced in growth to be injured. This is confirmed by the testimony of modern travellers. Dr. Richardson, writing in Egypt in the early part of March, says, "The barley and flax are now advanced; the former is in the ear, and the latter is bolled, and it seems to be about this season of the year that God brought the plague of thunder and hail upon the Egyptians, to punish the guilty Pharaoh, who had hardened his presumptuous heart against the miracles of Omnipotence."

Rye. It is uncertain whether the Hebrew Kusemeth, which occurs Exod. ix. 32, and which is there spoken of as anciently growing in Egypt, signifies rye. Most commentators contend that it was spelt, which the word is usually rendered in

other versions. No plant, however, bearing this name grows now in Egypt; and, as the modern state of agriculture in that country affords no data to assist us in our conjectures on the ancient agriculture, it is as likely to have been rye as spelt.

Dr. Shaw supposes that rice is the grain intended by the original, and cites Pliny as affirming that rice, or oryza, was the olyra of the ancients. Hasselquist, however, states that the Egyptians learned the cultivation of rice under the caliphs.

Ensete. We are told by Horus Apollo, that the Egyptians, wishing to describe the antiquity of their origin, figured a bundle of papyrus, as an emblem of the food they first subsisted on, when the use of wheat was yet unknown among them. Bruce affirms this to be the ensete, an Ethiopian plant, which was cultivated in Egypt till the general use of wheat superseded it as a diet. The stalk of this herbaceous plant, when boiled, has the taste of the best wheaten bread not perfectly baked, and if eaten with milk or butter, is wholesome, nourishing, and easy of digestion. This symbol, therefore, by no means proves that the ancient Egyptians ate plants before they discovered corn, but only that ensete was one of the articles they used for food, and which occasionally supplied the place of wheat.

Lotus.-The Egyptian lotus, an aquatic plant, and a species of water lily, was also used by the ancient Egyptians for food. Herodotus thus describes it: "The water lily grows in the inundated lands of Egypt. The seed of this flower, which resembles that of the poppy, they bake and make into a kind of bread. They also use the root of this plant, which is round, of an agreeable flavour, and about the size of an ⚫ apple. This the Egyptians call the lotus." Theophrastus, in his History of Plants, bears similar testimony. It is the nymphæa lotus of Linnæus, and the colocassia of Pliny. It is mentioned by Prosper Alpinus, under the name of culcas. At the present day it is called eddow, and the inundated places of the Nile produce an abundance of it. Its root is also the food of numbers both in the East and West Indies, and in the South Sea Islands.

Holcus Sorghum-This plant, which in Latin is called Milium, a name which points to a stalk bearing a thousand grains, appears to have been known in the early ages of the world in the countries bordering upon Egypt, and we may safely conclude that it was known in that country also. It is now extensively cultivated there, and three harvests are ob

tained in one year. In the countries south of Eygpt, it is frequently to be met with, from sixteen to twenty feet in height, and wheat being almost unknown there, both man and beast subsist chiefly upon it. In Egypt, it forms part of the diet of the poorer classes. But that which forms the chief food of the Egyptians is, what it has been from the remotest period of time, bread-corn.

Wheat. We learn from the interesting history of Joseph, as well as from the narrative of the ten plagues, that Egypt was famous in those days for this species of grain. Some, indeed, point out that country as the parent of wheat; and, as the earliest mention of it is connected with that country, and it might have extended from thence to the islands of the Mediterranean and to Greece and her colonies, the conjecture is probable.

The matchless wealth of Egypt arose from its corn, which, even in almost universal famine, enabled it to support neighbouring nations, as it did under Joseph's wise administration. In latter ages, it was the vast granary of Rome and Constantinople. A calumny was raised against St. Athanasius, charging him with having threatened to prevent in future the importation of corn into Constantinople from Alexandria, which greatly incensed the emperor Constantine against him, because he knew that his capital city could not subsist without the corn exported from Egypt thither. The same reason induced the emperors of Rome to take so great a care of Egypt, which they considered as the nursing mother of the world's metropolis.* The same river, however, which enabled Egypt to feed the two most populous cities in the world, sometimes reduced its own inhabitants to the most terrible famine; and it is astonishing that Joseph's wise foresight, which in fruitful years had made provision for seasons of sterility, should not have taught these wise politicians to

*If what Diodorus affirms to be true, that in his day, Egypt contained thirteen millions of people, and that the population consisted before his time of seventeen millions, the fertility of Egypt must have been prodigious indeed. And the wonder is heightened, when we reflect on the above-mentioned facts, that it exported vast quantities of grain to Rome, and afterwards to Constantinople. Rollin states the exportation to Rome to have been twenty millions of bushels of wheat, which is equal to 2,500,000 quarters. Such a quantity was more than sufficient to have supplied the whole population of Rome, though it should have doubled that of the metropolis of England at the present day. His error arises from mistranslation. The word "modi," which he translates bushels, according to Arbuthnot and Adam, signifies pecks. Hence 625,000 quarters only were exported to Rome annually.

adopt similar precautions against the contingency of the failure of the Nile. Pliny, in his panegyric upon Trajan, paints with great strength the extremity to which that country was reduced by a famine in the reign of that prince, and the relief he generously afforded to it. "The Egyptians," says he, "who gloried that they needed neither sun nor rain to produce their corn, and who believed they might confidently contest the prize of plenty with the most fruitful countries of the world, were condemned to an unexpected drought and a fatal sterility, from the greatest part of their territories being deserted and left unwatered by the Nile, whose inundation is the source and standard of their abundance. They then implored that assistance from their prince, which they had been accustomed to expect only from their river. The delay of their relief was no longer than that which employed a courier to bring the melancholy news to Rome; and one would have imagined that this misfortune had befallen them only to display with greater lustre the generosity and goodness of Cesar. It was an ancient and general opinion, that our city could not subsist without provisions drawn from Egypt. This vain and proud nation boasted, that though conquered, they nevertheless fed their conquerors; that, by means of their river, either abundance or scarcity were entirely at their disposal. But we now have returned the Nile his own harvests, and given him back the provisions he sent us. Let the Egyptians be, then, convinced by their own experience, that they are not necessary to us, and are only our vassals. Let them know that their ships do not so much bring us the provision we stand in need of, as. the tribute which they owe us. And let them never forget that we can do without them, but that they can never do without us. This most fruitful province had been ruined, had it not worn the Roman chains! The Eygptians, in their sovereign, found a deliverer and a father. Astonished at the sight of their granaries, filled without any labour of their own, they were at a loss to know to whom they owed this foreign and gratuitous plenty. The famine of a people, though at such a distance from us, yet so speedily stopped, served only to let them feel the advantage of living under our empire. The Nile may, in other times, have diffused more plenty in Egypt, but never more glory upon us. May Heaven, content with this proof of the people's patience, and the prince's generosity, restore for ever back to Egypt its ancient fertility.'

The reproach of this ancient author to the Egyptians for