86 FLORA OF THE 



Mr. St. Chad Boscawen observes that some such 

 ceremony as that referred to by Dr. Bonavia was 

 know to the Babylonians. 



The holy water of the well of Zemzem in a temple 

 near Mecca, the holy water of the Ganges, and of the well 

 in the Benares temple are all indications that holy 

 water is a very old method of scaring away evil spirits. 



Finally, on the same page, Mr. St. Chad Boscawen 

 published an extract from a friend's letter, received from 

 Cairo, which seems to show that the very same custom, 

 viz. of using a fir-cone as an ' aspergillum,' still exists in 

 the East. 



To conclude then, this holy-water theory would seem 

 the most rational way of interpreting the spiritual idea, 

 to which the Assyrian artist endeavoured to give form, 

 in the winged figure holding bucket and sprinkler. It 

 is one which would appear to meet the needs of all 

 cases in which this emblem is found, viz. a scaring away 

 of evil spirits from the king's person, their date trees, 

 the gates of their cities, temples, and palaces. 



Now, assuming that it was meant for a fir-cone of 

 some sort, was it a cedar-cone, or an ordinary pine-cone ? 

 There were cedar trees on the Lebanon, from which 

 they obtained the timber for their temples, and there 

 were pine trees on the mountains of Assyria, as we have 

 already seen. We have also seen that very probably 

 they used as sprinklers, cones of different kinds and 



