THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 295 



furtenance, but their trade, their tribute to the king and 

 the maintenance of a great part of the capital, depends up- 

 on honey and butter, the common food of the better fort 

 of people when they do not eat flefli ; it cofnpofes their 

 drink alfo in mead or hydromel. Now, this country, when 

 uncultivated, naturally produces lupines, and the bloffoms 

 of thefe becoming food for the bees, gives the honey fuch 

 a bitternefs that no perfon will eat it, or ufe it any way in 

 food or for dnnk.-After the king had beitowed the village 

 of Geefh upon me, though with the confent of Fafil its go- 

 vernor, that egregious muffler, to make the prefent of no . 

 ufe to me, fent me, indeed, the tribute of the honey in very 

 large jars but it all tailed fo much of the lupines that it 

 was of no earthly ufe whatever, Their conftant attention 

 is to weed out this bitter plant ; and, when any of thofe coun- 

 tries are defolated by war, we may exped a large crop of 

 lupines immediately to follow, and, for a time, plenty of 

 bad honey in confequence. It is, then, this deftrudhve bean 

 that Pythagoras, who, it is faid, ate no nefh, regarded as an 

 objedt of deteftation; it was equally fo among the Aby Ann- 

 ans and Egyptians for the fame reafon. Both nations, more- 

 over, have an averlion to hogs nefh, and both avoid the touch 

 of dogs. , 



It is here I propofe to take notice of an unnatural cuftom 



which prevails univerfaliy m Abyiiima, and which in early 



a-es feems to have been common to the whole world. I did 



>t think that any perfon of moderate knowledge in profane 



could have been ignorant of this remarkable cuf- 



the nations of the eafl. But what mil more 



fiirpi ifed m is the lead pardonable part of the whole, 



arice of part of the law of Gcd, the earheft 



. „•■ that 



