AND LO\V£R EGYtT. 225 



At Kous I was presented at a dinner, for the 

 first time, with tahine. It is thus that the Egyptians 

 call the dregs of the oil of the sesame, to which 

 they add honey and citron juice. This ragout is 

 much in vogue, but, in truth, without deserving 

 it ; for, disagret-ahle to the eye from its colour and 

 its half-liquid co^^i8tency, it is still more so to the 

 palate from its taste. The oil which is extracted 

 from the seed of the sesame, and which is called 

 in Arabic siritch, is also highly valued in Egypt. 

 It is preferred to that of the olive, to which it is 

 greatly inferior; and, in all likelihood, Europeans 

 will never consider it fit for any other use than io 

 employ in the lamp and the frying-pan. 



It is not only of late that the sesame and its oil 

 have been held in repute in the East. The Baby- 

 lonians (the ancient inhabitants of Bagdad), ac- 

 cording to Herodotus, made use of no other oil 

 than that which they extracted from the sesame *. 

 Pliny mentions it as being equally unfit to eat or 

 to burn -|~; and Dioscorides says that the Egyp- 

 tians made many uses of it J. It is likely that the 

 present inhabitants ot the same country, very igno- 

 rant in the manipulation of oils, since that which 

 they extract from tiie olive is very bad, and fit only 



* Lib. i. French translation, and note of Citizen Larcher. 

 f Lib xviii. cap. lO. + Lib. i. cap. 121. 



VOL. III. a for 



