227 



been sent to his preceptor Aristotle, from whom a 

 knowledge of it would have been readily obtained 

 by Theophrastus ? But without supposing any in- 

 terference of the conqueror himself, specimens of 

 such a striking vegetable as the Nymphcea Nelumbo 

 could hardly fail of finding their way to Greece from 

 the East. Its introduction into Egypt may, I think, 

 be similarly accounted for, and may be reasonably 

 fixed at about the same period. The Kva^oc men- 

 tioned by Herodotus as being held in abomination 

 by the Egyptians, is certainly not the Nymphcea Ne- 

 lumbo, I conceive ; he expressly calls it an ocnrpiov, and 

 the circumstance of its being held in abomination, 

 of its being deemed ov KaOapoc, sufficiently points 

 out that it could never have been the holy, adorable 

 Nymphaa of India. Herodotus, then, knew nothing 

 of any other kind of Kvapoc in Egypt than of the 

 ordinary bean. But the Nymphcea Nelumbo might 

 very probably have been introduced into Egypt 

 about the time of the first Ptolemy : to Nicander, 

 who lived at Alexandria under the seventh Ptole- 

 my, it would of course be known ; but it might still 

 be so little cultivated as to induce him to insist upon 

 its excellence in his Georgics. What effect this 

 exportation might have, I know not; but the culti- 

 vation of the Nymphcea Nelumbo appears to have 

 continued in Egypt in the time of Pliny, who men- 

 tions two genera of Egyptiany#&E, one of which he 

 calls " rotundius et nigrius ;" this I conceive to be 

 the Nelumbo: the other kind I presume was the 

 ordinary Kva/moc of Herodotus. If the above hypo- 

 thesis be true, it is certainly somewhat unfavourable 



gl2 



