CAIRO. VEGETATION. ` 265 
some light on the science of the Egyptians, and though mixed up 
with astrology and mythology, they would have given evidence 
that their constructors possessed a faint insight into truths, which, 
till lately, were hidden from ourselves. The Egyptian priest, who 
told Pliny (I believe) that the Atlantic Ocean contained islands, 
bigger than Europe and Africa put together, might have left in 
the Pyramids some further proof of his conviction that there is a 
Western World, if Science had, either wholly or in part, suggested 
the foundation of these structures. Our early prejudices are 
thus liable to be continually outraged. Yet I hardly see why we 
should be sorry to find out, that our predecessors were less wise 
than we had supposed them. 
* E * * * * 
Cairo I found a most interesting place, for everything but botany. 
The city, as perhaps I have already mentioned, is situated on the 
slope, or spur of a long range of hills, which there dips down to the 
Nile. To the south there is little space for cultivation, the desert 
coming close up to the river, leaving but a narrow strip, of which 
every advantage is taken : on the opposite side, however, the belt is 
broader, some miles across, extending from the Nile to the desert, 
and kept fertile by canals, cut between the river and a long line of 
puddles, which run parallel to the Nile, but close to the desert. 
There are no trees, except upon the banks on either side, and these 
almost exclusively Date-Palms, in clumps and groves, Acacia Lebekh 
in long avenues, and scattered Sycamore figs. All the Date-trees 
are spoiled, as to appearance, from the dead, or dying, leaves being 
invariably eut away, when the Palm shoots up a long naked rough- 
looking and hungry stem, forty to sixty feet, crowned with a formal 
tuft of fronds ; at this season the fruits are all gathered, and of these 
there are eight or ten varieties, large and small, yellow, red, purple, 
and almost black. A little grass grows under their shade, or 
sometimes wheat is planted. The fields are all laid out in squares 
of various sizes, carefully irrigated from the Nile, the water when 
required being raised by wheels, whose tires are covered with large 
pots, and the whole moved by a bullock. There are but few 
hedges and they are chiefly of Prickly-Pear or Parkinsonia aculeata, 
