294 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



it has followed, that there are many of each clafs that 

 know not whether they are clean or not; and a wonderful 

 confufion and uncertainty has followed through ignorance 

 or miftake, being unwilling to violate the law in any one 

 inflance through not underftanding it. 



The abhorrence of the old Egyptians for the bean is well 

 known, and many filly reafons have been affigned for it ; 

 but that which has moil met the approbation of the moll 

 learned men is, in my humble opinion, the weakeft of them 

 all. They fay, the averfion to the bean arofe from its re- 

 fembling the phallus ; but the crux anfata, or the crofs 

 with the handle to it, which is put in the hand of every 

 Egyptian hieroglyphic of His, Ofiris, or whatever the priefts 

 have called them, is likewife agreed by the learned to re- 

 present the phallus; and the figure of thefe nudities, with- 

 out vail or concealment, is plain in all their ftatues. Now, 

 I would afk, What is the reafon why they abhor a bean be- 

 caufe it reprefents thefe parts which, at the fame time, 

 by their own option or choice, are expofed in the hand or 

 perfon of every figure which they exhibit to public view ? 

 The bean, however, is not cultivated in Abyflinia, neither is 

 it in Egypt ; lupines grow up in both, and lupines in both 

 are eradicated like a weed, and lupines were what is called 

 faba JEgyptlaca. 



Though I cannot pretend to know the true reafon of 

 this, yet I will venture to give a guefs : — The origin of great 

 part of religious oblervances of Egypt began with the wor- 

 fhip of the Nile, and probably at the head of it. The coun- 

 try of the Agows, as well where the Nile rifes as in parts 

 more diilant, is all a honey country ; not only their whole 



iuftenance, 



