AND LOWER EGYPT. 253 



man, is common in Guinea, at Angola, and upon 

 some other of the coasts of Africa *. 



You do not see amid these flocks of sheep and 

 goats in Egypt an animal of another species, whicl), 

 in our country, forms one of the articles of rural 

 wealth as well as one of the most common and sa- 

 voury viands. The legislators of the East, to begin 

 with the priests of ancient Egypt, agreed to pro- 

 scribe the flesh of the hog. This animal was con- 

 sidered as unclean by the Egyptians in particular. 

 If any one chanced to touch it, merely in passing, 

 he was obliged to plunge into the Nile with his 

 clothes on. Those who kept herds of them form" 

 ed an isolated class who were excluded from the 

 society of other men ; although Egyptians them- 

 selves, admission into the temples of Egypt was 

 forbidden them. Nobody would give them their 

 daughters in marriage, nor would any one wed 

 theirs -f. Nevertheless, whilst the Jews in Egypt 

 who had taken this aversion to hogs never either 

 sacrificed or ate them ; the Egyptians sacrificed 

 them once a year to the Moon, and, on this day 

 only, the day of the feast of the full moon, was it 

 lawful to eat them ;{:. 



* Natural History of Quadrupeds, and Supplement, art , 

 Buck of Ju'ida. Capra reversa. Lin. 



t Herodotus, lib. ii. sect, xlvii. French translation of Lar- 

 cher. 



X Ibid, Notes of Larcher. 



It 



