BOOK XVIII. xxx. I20-XXXI. 123 



instead of stable nianure to fertilize the ground it is 

 grow n in ; consequently in the districts of Macedon 

 and Thessaly when it begins to blossom the farmers 

 jilough up the fields. It also grows wild in most 

 phices, for example the islands of the North Sea, for 

 which our name is consequently the Bean Islands," 

 and it also grows wild all over Mauretania, though 

 this bean is very hard and incapable of bcing cooked. 

 It '' also grows in Egypt, where it has a thorny stalk Egyptian 

 which makes the crocodiles keep away from it for ^'"*' 

 fear of injui-ing their eyes. The stalk is two yards 

 long at most and the thickness of a finger : if it had 

 knots in it, it woukl be Uke a soft reed ; it has a head 

 like a poppy, is rose-coloured, and bears not more 

 than thirty beans on each stalk ; the leaves are 

 large ; the actual fruit is bititer even in smell, but 

 the root is a very popular article of diet with the 

 natives, and is eaten raw and cooked in every sort of 

 way ; it resembles the roots of reeds. The Egyptian 

 l)ean also grows in Syria and CiUcia, and at the 

 Lake of Torone in Chalcidice. 



XXXI. Vegetables sown in autumn or spring are LentUsand 

 the lentil and in Greece the pea. The lentil Ukes ^^'"' 

 a thin soil better than a rich one, and in any case a 

 dry cUmate. Egypt has two kinds of lentil, one 

 rounder and blacker, the other the normal shape, 

 which has given the name of lenticle appUed to small 

 flasks. I fmd it stated in writers that a lentil diet 

 conduces to an equable temper. Peas must be sown 

 in sunny places, as they stand cokl very badly ; con- 

 sequently in Italy and in severer cUmates they are 

 only sown in spring, in yielding soil that has been 

 weU loosened. 



" Korkum in the North Sea. * Nelumbo nucifera. 



267 



