Nor food to the enllghten'd mind alone,- 

 Substantial nutriment thy root * bestow'd. 



In famine's vulture fangs did Egypt groan, 

 From thy rich bounteous horn f abundance flow'd. 



* We learn from Herodotus, « that the Egyptians were fed by the root of the different Nymphaeas which flourish m the waters of the 

 Nile." He distinctly points out the two kinds. The one he describes " as producing a root of the size and shape of an apple, which kind 

 had a seed-vessel of the form and shape of a poppy, containing seeds as small as millet, of which bread was made. This Lotos he discrimi- 

 nates - as resembling most a lily." He next speaks of " the other Lotos, whose flower is also of the lily kind, but more resembling the full- 

 blown rose, the fruit of which imitates the nest of a wasp, and contains seeds of the size of an olive, and good to eat. Euterpe, ch. 2g. 



Theophrastus equally well describes both sorts. Speaking of the common Nympheeas he says, " The fruit is equal in size to a arge 

 poppy, and contains a great number of seeds similar to grains of millet. The Egyptians deposit the fruit in heaps, and suffer the vessels to 

 putrefy: they then separate the seeds by washing them in the Nile, dry them, and make them into bread. The root, which is called corsion, 

 is round and of the size of a guinea. Its rind is black, and like that of a chestnut. It is of a fine white in the inside, and is eaten either raw 

 or boiled." ^5^. o/P/a/if5, Book iv. Chap. 10. r u r . ^ ■ u ^u 



Sonnini a most intelligent traveller and learned naturalist, mentions, " that at the present day, the roots of the Lotos turnish the 

 common people with their chief sustenance. The large tubers are gathered as the waters subside, and dried, and then eaten, boiled or roasted, 

 like our potatoes, which they resemble in taste, but are more mealy." Travels into Egypt. 



The roots of all the sorts are admitted by the Chinese to their tables, and the ponds and lakes are cultivated with the Nelumbium, which 

 is one principal cause of the abundant population of that country. " In whatever way prepared it is equally pleasant and wholesome. Great 

 quantities are pickled with salt and vinegar, which is then eaten with rice. Reduced to powder by grating, hke our potatoe, it makes a most 

 excellent flour." Embassy to China by Lord Macartney. 



+ The horn-like appearance of the seed-vessel of the Nelumbium so exactly resembles the Cornucopia of the ancients, that the Grecian 

 Horn of Plenty seems to have been derived from this source. Their tradition states, that the nurse of Jupiter was the goat Amalthea, (a 

 name derived from «>x5.uV to nourish), who for her services was afterwards turned into a star, and presented with the Cornucopia. The 

 first food of man being bread and milk, gave origin to this Grecian fable, for their Ceres was nothing more than a corruption of the Egyptian 

 Isis, who is represented in the temples of Egypt with the seed-vessel of the Nelumbium in her hand. Sometimes in Egyptian sculpture their 

 Iris or Ceres, is seen with the seed-vessel of the Nelumbium in the left arm, and some ears of corn intermixed with the seed-vessel of either 

 the Nymph^a'carulea, or Nymphcea Lotos, in the right. The Greeks and Romans, who borrowed their religion chiefly from the Egyptians, 

 not only mistook the Cornucopia for a real horn, but ^Iso the seed-vessel of the Lotos for that of the Poppy, to which it bears much resem- 



'''' The Egyptian Isis holds in her right hand a sphere, for the Egyptian priests taught that the earth was round (such was the doctrine of 

 Pythagoras) this the more refined Greeks converted into a sickle, when she became their Ceres ; and to represent the earth, they sometimes 

 adorned her head with a turret, when she became Magna Dea, or Cybele; and instead of the cornucopia they increased the number of her 

 breasts when she was made to represent abundant Nature. , 



That the Greeks derived their deities from the Egyptians we have not only the probability from the resemblance, but the direct confession 

 of Herodotus, who visited the priests of both Heliopolis and Thebes; and he declares, "that the Grecian Theology is derived from the 



Egyptian." Herod. Lib. ii. p. 8o. i, r^ i \ u fu 



As Isis was supposed by the Egyptians to inhabit the mnnn, as nxlrh (\\d thp snn (the Jpf^Tln nnd Bnrchus of the Greeks), hence they 

 placed a crescent on her head when she became their Diana. Her chastity they fancied from the pale brightness or chill of the Moon, for 

 as the Egyptian gods had each their wives and concubines, according to Eastern manners, the produce of Osiris and Isis was Orus, the 



A/ercury of the Greeks. , . ^ 7 • .u r» i • -n vu 



Sometimes Orus is represented in Egyptian sculpture as a simple boy, sometimes, however, he is Jnubis, or the Barking Dog, with a 



Caduceus in his hand, and wings to his feet. r u ^y, t. • 



The Eo-yptians, a race dealing in symbols, designed by Jnubis vigilance, and at the commencement of the overflow of the Nile their priests 

 presented this figure to them as a warning ; the wings on the feet denoted the rapidity of the flood ; the caduceus, the generation of serpents 

 by the waters ; and its two wings, the Etesian, or west wind, which sets in at that time. 



The more refined Greeks did not at all relish such a figure of a god, and for the head of a dog they^ substituted a cap, and for the two 

 ears placed two wings on the cap, covering a human head, but the other parts resemble the Egyptian figure. 



The seed-vessel of the Nelumbium, will furnish us also with another key to unlock the stores of ancient knowledge. Pythagoras, the 

 introducer amongst his countrymen of the Metempsychosis, and who taught in symbols, has prohibited his disciples from eating beans, they 

 might eat peas, but not beans ; and in order to reconcile this seeming strange interdiction, " abstain from beans," has been interpreted to 

 keep from political disputes, which were decided by lot ; but Doctor Priestley says it is meant in the obvious sense of the words, as being very 

 fattening food, and is a caution against corpulency. But as his golden rules were symbols, I am inclined to think that he alluded to the 

 Egyptian bean. " Abstain from beans," meant against the indulging in any luxury to the detriment of the people ; for by eating only thirty 

 beans, thirty plants were destroyed, which would have furnished tubers (potatoes) for as many families, and this plant was dispersed by the 

 bounty of Providence on the shores of the Nile, as food for the common people, and not sown by mortal hands. Hence it was, Egypt, abound- 

 ing also in corn, became the granary of the world, and its store-houses furnished the neighbouring nations ; and hence it was that the Romans 

 represented on their medals Ceres, with a ship by her side, as denoting the transport of corn from Egypt. 



To prove the rarity of the Nelumbium even in the time oi Adrian, Athenaeus relates {Deipnosoph. lib. iii. p. 73.) that it changed its 

 appellation into the Antinoian flower. " A poet," says this historian, " presented the emperor Adrian with the rose Lotos {Nelumbium) 

 as a rarity, and accounts for its produce from the blood of that terrible lion called Antinoian, which had committed great devastation in 

 Lybia, and was finally killed in Egypt by Adrian in hunting." 



Strabo relates, that the Nelumbium was once very common in Egypt, and that during festivals on the water the barges rowed under the 

 shade of its immense leaves, which greatly resemble a Thessalian cap. {Lib. xvii.) 



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