FROM SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED LIFE. 203 



wheat sculptured upon the Zodiacs of Thebes and Esne', are apparently of the 

 same species as at present cultivated. In the bread found in the tombs of Upper 

 Egypt, Mr BROWN found many grains of barley entire, and perfectly similar to 

 those of the present day. This fact is corroborated by other observers. M. RAS- 

 PAIL having examined specimens of the grains found by M. PASSALACQUA in an 

 Egyptian tomb, ascertained them to be the Triticum vulgare and the Hordeum 

 mdgare of modern botanists. The grains in this case appear to have been partly 

 roasted, were of a reddish colour, and larger than the European wheat.* For 

 three thousand years, then, it is proved that these grains have undergone no per- 

 ceptible change ; so that all the theoretical speculations of fanciful writers as to the 

 improvement of the Cerealia by the cultivation of ages, and the loss of the origi- 

 nal type, fall to the ground, and the merit of " converting a sterile herb into corn," 

 remains with the inventor of the tale. 



M. BUREAU DE LA MALLE concludes, that, besides the valley of the Jordan, 

 the chain of Lebanon, or the portion of Palestine and Syria which adjoins Arabia, 

 ought to be considered, with great probability, as the native country of the Ce- 

 realia. 



That the valley of the Jordan, and the districts now mentioned, are places 

 where the Cerealia were cultivated in ancient times, is at once conceded ; because 

 they are countries which were early tenanted by families of men. But that the 

 valley of the Jordan, or Palestine, were the sole places from whence the cultivated 

 grains emanated, is not warranted from any source but the traditions of the Egyp- 

 tian priesthood, retailed by historians. The true history of the Cerealia, similar to 

 what has been stated as to the domestication of cattle, may be traced to a more dis- 

 tant period, and to a higher source, than the Isis of the Egyptians and the banks of 

 the Jordan. I have no hesitation in stating, upon the authority of the most sacred 

 of all records, and that statement is corroborated in every particular by the facts of 

 history, the observations of naturalists, and the nature of things, that the know- 

 ledge and cultivation of the Cerealia must have been communicated to the first man. 

 Far from the hunting state or the pastoral state being the earliest or the most 

 natural state of man, it is declared in Scripture, in express terms, that man's first 

 occupation was to " dress and keep" the garden in which he was placed ; and after 

 the fall, his eldest son was an agriculturist " a tiller of the ground." There is 

 no gradation of savage to barbarous from barbarous to civilized life ; no evidence 

 of brute intelligence, to be improved in after ages to the height of reason, and the 

 moral responsibilities of an intelligent being. Man was created a being as perfect 

 as any of his future race ; and however the knowledge of his descendants was to 



* Mem. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. xv. 145. The wheat grown in Abyssinia is, according to BRUCE, 

 smaller than the Egyptian wheat. 



