THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 57 



vated there two thousand years before Christ. We know too, 

 that this pungent vegetable has place in those pleasant mem- 

 ories of Pharaoh's land which were awakened in the children 

 of Israel during their wanderings in the wilderness. Latter 

 day Egyptians endued the onion with something of a divine 

 nature and rendered to it especial homage. So Juvenal, allud- 

 ing to this superstition in one of his satires, speaks of Egypt 

 as a country where it is dangerous 



"To violate an onion or to stain 



The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane." 



No less venerable than the onion is the nutritious lentil — 

 more prized in the old world than in the new. It, indeed, has 

 been found in the remains of the Swiss Lake dwellings of 

 the Bronze Age. The Romans called it lens, and the lens of 

 modern science is named from its resemblance to the smooth, 

 double convex seed. Lentil seeds, in days of old, were made 

 into the most nutritious of flours, and were also stewed as a 

 pottage. The mess of red pottage for which Esau bartered 

 his birthright, was undoubtedly of lentils. At the present 

 day, the Hindus regard the lentil as of all foods the best for 

 long journeys or hard work. 



Another peculiarly Oriental vegetable is the cucumber. 

 A favorite in the East since the earliest times, it is yet planted 

 inPalestine by the acre, forming a staple of diet among the 

 poorer classes. The imagery of Isaiah is familiar to all — "as 

 a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." It is known to have 

 been cultivated at least thirty centuries ago in India, which 

 is perhaps its native land, spreading thence east to China and 

 west to all Christendom. 



When our Aryan ancestors left the cradle of the race and 

 made their prehistoric invasion of Europe, peas and beans 

 doubtless formed part of their diet, for these vegetables have 

 been cultivated from before the memory of man — peas, like 

 lentils, occurring in the remains of the Swiss Lake-dwellers. 



