242 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



Also connected with the personality of the Scrip- 

 tures is a reedy looking plant with shaggy grass- 

 like heads, often grown in California gardens 

 for ornament the paper reed of antiquity (Papy- 

 rus antiquorum). Egypt taught the ancient world 

 to make books out of this. The pith was ex- 

 tracted, cut into strips, and these laid side by side 

 with others crosswise upon them, were subjected to 

 soaking and pressure. Thus were produced sheets 

 of writing paper upon which biblia or books were 

 inscribed, sheet being glued to sheet end to end and 

 all rolled together as a scroll. This reed once grew 

 abundantly at the marshy borders of lakes and 

 streams in Egypt, as it does to-day in Palestine and 

 Abyssinia; and it was no doubt of this plant that 

 the ark of "bulrushes" was made in which the 

 mother of Moses placed him and hid him away by 

 the river's brink, where afterwards the daughter of 

 Pharaoh was to find him. 



Ancient Palestine was famous for the delicious- 

 ness of its dates, and the palms of the Bible were 

 Phoenix dactylifera date-palms, under three score- 

 and-ten of which by the twelve wells of Elim, the 

 Israelites of the exodus once pitched their tents. 

 It was the date palm which the Psalmist meant, 

 when he declared "the righteous shall flourish like 



