70 FLORA OF THE 



solemnity, ne remarks that " they attached citrons to 

 palm leaves, and that they used to bring branches of 

 citron trees, which seems to indicate that the tree was 

 grown there." 



Prof. Alph. De Candolle, in his ' Origin of Cultivated 

 Plants,' p. 1 8 1, says: "As the Greeks had seen the 

 citron in Media and Persia in the time of Theo- 

 phrastus, ^/iree centuries B.C., it would be strange if 

 the Hebrews had not become acquainted with it at 

 the time of the Babylonish captivity." ^ 



There is, I think, evidence enough to show that the 

 Assyrians must have been well acquainted with the 

 citron, and I thought that possibly the figures holding 

 a cone-fruit might be intended to represent some 

 ceremony in which the citron played a part, and from 

 which the Jews had derived their citron ceremony, 

 having been in contact with the Babylonians during 

 their captivity. 



This is not all, for there appears to me strong 

 evidence in support of the belief that the fingered 

 citron was known also to the Egyptians. 



During the session of the Ninth International Con- 

 gress of Orientalists, in the reception room of the 

 University of London, I saw three reproductions of 

 Egyptian wall-paintings from ' El Kab.' One of them 



^ See Babylonian and Oriental Record on the ' Antiquity of the Citron Tree 

 in Egypt,' vol. vi, No. 9, March, Ife93, p. 203. 



