179^' LITERARY INTELLIGENCER. SOJ 



its place. I do likewife conjeftufe, that the bundle of 

 branches of a plant, which Horus Apollo fays the an- 

 cient Egyptians produced as the food on which they 

 lived before the difcovery of wheat, was not the papy- 

 rus, as he imagines, but this plant, the Enfete, which 

 retired to its native Ethiopia, upon a fubftitvite being 

 found, better adapted to the climne of Egypt." 



Had the ancient Egyptians been poilelTed of the 

 Nymphiea aqitatica, they could never have experienced 

 a famine from a luperabundance of water. When too 

 much for wheat", the Enfete would thrive ; when too 

 deep for the Enfete, the Nymphaea would have prof- 

 pered. 



Hijlorical Notices ccncevniag the Aloors in Spain. 



At a time when Europe was buried in barbarifm and 

 ignorance, the nr-tives of Africa were a great people, 

 highly civilized, and far advanced in arts, in induftry, 

 and fcience. It was during that epoch, that the Moors, 

 invited by the profligacy of the prince, and the barba- 

 rity of the people of Spain, invaded that fertile penin^ 

 fula ; and during the courfe of two campaigns, made a 

 total conqueft of that country, a few mountainous pro- 

 vinces on the northern borders of it alone excepted. The 

 fertility of the foil, the mildnefs of the climate, and the 

 induftry of tlie Moors, who now occupied thefe regions, 

 all contributed alike to render it in a lliort time one of 

 the moft delightful regions in the univerfe. Along the 

 coaft of the Pvleditcrranean, where nature has proved 

 fmgularly bountiful, the Moors chiefly delighted to fet- 

 tle ; — and accuftomed at home to a feudal dependance 

 j|pn afuperior, the kingdom was divided into feudal feig- 

 neuries, depending upon their couimon cliief, the great 

 Miramolin, who then reigned with unrivalled fplendor 

 in Afiica. But upon tlie difaltcrs tl)at befcl the defcen- 



