THE SUB-TROPICAL ZONE. 95 



from one grain of wheat. The first had 

 seven stalks, the next three, the third eighteen, 

 the fourth fourteen. Each stalk bore an ear. 

 It often happens that one stalk will bear two 

 ears, while each of these ears will branch out 

 into a number of lesser ones, thus aifording a 

 plentiful increase. Egypt is indebted for its 

 fertility to a system of artificial irrigation, esta- 

 blished in the times of its ancient prosperity. 

 To the same cause the plain of Lombardy 

 formerly owed its richness, and its inhabitants 

 their opulence, and we may add, their liberty, 

 when the nations of Europe were immersed in 

 ignorance and barbarism. 



The cucumber and the gourd have been cul- 

 tivated in Egypt from the earliest times. " We 

 remember," said the Israelites in the wilderness, 

 " the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the 

 cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the 

 onions, and the garlic," Num. xi. 5 ; and these 

 cooling vegetables, the water melon particularly, 

 still form the great part of the food of the lower 

 class of the people in Egypt during the summer 

 months. " A traveller in the east, who recol- 

 lects the intense gratitude which the gift of a 

 slice of melon inspired while journeying over 

 the hot and dry plains, or one who remembers 

 the consciousness of wealth and security which 

 he derived from the possession of a melon, while 

 prepared for a day's journey over the same 

 plains he will readily comprehend the regret 

 with which the Hebrews in the Arabian desert 

 looked back upon the melons of Egypt." Garlic 



