84 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



lusion by Pliny to the medicinal plants of that 

 country, we may conclude that the productions 

 of the desert (where those herbs mostly grow) 

 were particularly prized ; and several were found 

 of great use in dyeing, tanning, curing skins, 

 and various other purposes. Of these, the most 

 remarkable were the fungi, for dyeing; the pods 

 of the Acacia Nilotica, the bark of the Acacia 

 Seyal, and the wood and bark of the Rhus oxy- 

 acanthoides, for tanning ; and the Periploca Se- 

 camone*, for curing skins. 



The process adopted in the employment of 

 these plants I shall not now stop to describe, 

 nor shall I enter into any detail of their me- 

 dicinal use, and the maladies they are said to 

 cure : this will more properly form part of a dis- 

 sertation on the botany of Egypt, reserved for a 

 future work. But I may be allowed to make one 

 observation on the Owseg, Oiu.slies, or Lycium Eu- 

 ropaeum, though not immediately connected with 

 the subject of Egypt. This thoiny shrub, called 

 by the Copts Ramnus, which is common in the 

 hills, throughout Lower Egypt and Syria, has 

 a better claim to the title of "the holy thorn," of 

 which the Saviour's crown is said to have been 

 made, than any other plant. The modern and 

 ancient Greeks agree with the Copts in giving it 

 the name Ramnus ; and Pliny t evidently had in 

 view the Oivshefi, when he says *'it is called by the 

 Greeks Rhamnus, and is a flowering thorny plant, 



* This climbing plant appears to be represented in the tomb of 

 Remeses III. at Thebes, used in lieu of the ivy, which in its leaf it 

 slightly resembles. 



-{■ Plin. xxiv, li. 



