226 



make you sonic slight return for the amusement 



and instruction which I yesterday received from you. 



I am, dear Sir, 



Yours most truly, 



F. Sayers. 



I must leave our learned friend to settle the ety- 

 mology of Manioc, as I am not fluent either in the 

 Coptic or Cushite. Herodotus, when he mentions 

 that the Egyptians did not eat the Kvafxoc, and that 

 the priests thought it unclean (ov KaOapoc), uses the 

 word oairpiov in the same paragraph as including 

 the KvapoQ. 



Prom the same. 



Dear Sir, Close, Oct. 3, 1808. 



Since I had the pleasure of sending you a few 

 passages which I had hastily collected respecting the 

 Kva/iioQ of the ancients, a supposition has occurred to 

 me, by which I think some of the difficulties arising 

 on that subject might possibly be removed. I have 

 therefore thought proper to trouble you with it. 

 As we have found no Greek writer, prior to Theo- 

 phrastus, who has used the word Kva/xoc with any 

 any other meaning than that of the ordinary legu- 

 men so called, — doe3 it not appear possible that 

 the Hindu Kva/noc (or Nymphaa Nelumbo) may have 

 heen first imported from the East, at the time of the 

 conquests of Alexander P Might not even the king 

 himself have ordered so celebrated a plant (and pro- 

 bably other curious natural productions) to have 



