<L$0 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



Egypt, and which, in all probability, never con- 

 stituted a part of the ancient agriculture of that 

 country. But these are nothing more than the 

 very luminous conjectures of science : a contra- 

 dictory fact still maintains its ground, that of the 

 straw which covered the antique statue of Osiris, 

 so accurately examined by Messrs, de Caylus and 

 de Bose. 



M. Pauw, in the same work, wherein paradoxes 

 are no rarities, goes still farther : he insists, that 

 supposing the ancient Egyptians to have been ac- 

 quainted with rice, they would have been on their 

 guard against the cultivation of it, because, ac- 

 cording to him, this species of culture is sufficient 

 to generate endemical diseases in a country where 

 it never thunders, at least very rarely, and where 

 the atmosphere, impregnated with saline sub- 

 stances which the fire of heaven does not con- 

 sume, is very much subject to corruption * ; nay, 

 he insinuates that this is one of the causes of the 

 pestilence, which he erroneously supposes to be 

 an epidemical disease in Egypt. What has be- 

 trayed M. Pauw into this mistake, for he never 

 saw the rice-grounds of Egypt but in his closet, is 

 his considering them as marshes, the idea of rice- 

 ground being generally associated with that of a 



* Philosophical Researches, p. 89, 90. 



marsh 



