Chap. XII. ANTI EN T METAPHYSICS. 249 



which it produced, particularly the Lotus^ Agrojiis^ and Biblus^ that it 

 maintained numbers of men without the ufe of any corn : For He- 

 rodotus mentions a part of Egypt which was altogether marihy, 

 where the inhabitants neither fowed nor reaped, but lived entirely 

 upon the produce of the river ; and Diodorus Siculus tells us, that, 

 even in the country that was fown, the children were brought up 

 chiefly upon plants that grew in the river, with little or no expence 

 to their parents. 



But not only was the water thus bountiful to the inhabitants, but 

 the earth, I imagine, was of the beft kind, producing plants which 

 were to be found in no other country : So that 1 believe we owe to 

 Egypt the very bread we eat ; for wheat and barley, and every other 

 fpecies of grain, mull have grown wild in fome country before they 

 were cultivated ; and, accordingly, Diodorus Siculus tells us, that 

 the wheat was a wild plant in Egypt before Ifis taught the people 

 the culture of it. Now, I do not believe that the common wheat, and 

 much lefs the finefl kind of it, which they called Zea^ and which was 

 the Far of the Romans, and the food of the beft people in Egypt*, is, 

 at prefent, or was, at any time, the natural produce of any other coun- 

 try. The barley, too, of which we make our ale, and upon which 

 the Greeks fed before they got the ufe of wheat, was, I am perfuad- 

 ed, likewife a native of Egypt, and of no other country j and fo 

 alfo was the vine, which Ofirls carried to India and taught the In- 

 dians the culture of. And if it went as far as India, we may pre- 

 fume that it went to Greece, and that the Greeks learned the cul- 

 ture of it, as well as other arts, from the Egyptians. 



Herodotus has likewife mentioned the works of art in Egypt, as 

 being moft wonderful, as well as thofe of nature. I will fay fome- 

 thing upon this fubje£t likewife; and, I will begin with one of them, 

 which, I think, was as neceffary as it was wonderful, and in that 



Vol. IV. I i refpea 



* Herodotus, Lib. 2. cap. 36. 



