FLORAL ANTIQUITIES OF THE EAST. 141 



terms, describing it as a tree ; but, in his details, he is more correct, 

 where he describes its fruit as resembling a bean, and makes reference 

 to it as an immortal plant — an idea essentially Indian in character. 

 Strabo, in his seventeenth book, also refers to it, and states that Syrtes 

 on the Mediterranean, as well as Menynx, were said to be lotophagitis. 

 The compass of the gulf, which modern geographers represent as 

 composed of two immense sand banks, comprised, according to Strabo, 

 about sixteen hundred furlongs, the breadth of the mouth being six 

 hundred ; and it was extremely fertile in the growth of the lotos. But 

 Strabo, whose accuracy is seldom impeachable, represents the lotos as 

 a tree, and says that Menynx was the country of the lotophagi, or 

 those that feed on lotos trees, of which Homer makes mention ; and 

 further informs us that monuments of Ulysses, as well as his altar, 

 remain there ; and that the country abounds withlote-trees, the fruit of 

 which is exceedingly sweet. The account of Strabo is confirmed by 

 Pliny,* who describes the lote-trees as growing in abundance on the 

 two sand banks of the Mediterranean, though Pliny was well acquainted 

 with the distinction between this and the true Egyptian lotos. It is 

 needless to repeat minute and copious narrative here ; suffice it that 

 the "lote-trees " of these later authors, which are doubtless identical 

 with the thorny shrub discovered in Africa by Mungo Park, is distinct 

 from the true lotos of antiquity, and deserves none of the honours 

 which have been heaped upon it by authors who were misled by its 

 spurious name. The plant described by Herodotus is not only the 

 true lotos of eastern antiquity, but, in its essential character as a 

 plant, has the highest claim to symbolical uses. It is one of the 

 plants indigenous to the mud of the Nile, and grows plentifully also 

 in the great streams of India. It is a plant of great beauty, closely 

 allied in botanical properties to the water lily of Britain ; its roots 

 creep along the bottoms of lakes and rivers, and are fleshy bulbous 

 masses, containing a mass of white pulp, as Pliny saith, *' delicious to 

 eat." It is a stately and majestic creature of the waters ; its leaves 

 are heart shaped, targeted, slightly waved, from four to twelve inches 

 long, of a greenish purple hue, and float in broad rich masses on the 

 surface of the water, so as to defend the flower in the centre, whether 

 in deep or shallow water ; the leaves always lie flat on the surface, the 

 hollow petiole, to which they are attached, increasing in length as the 



* Book xiil., chap. 7. 



