AND LOWER EGYPT. 315 



to M. Pauw*, should have overlooked this lotus 

 in the nymphea, and that the latter should have 

 declared that this plant had disappeared out of 

 Egypt, where it formerly grew in great abundance. 

 Savary had already exposed thiserror of M. Pauw, 

 but he goes too far when he says it is not won- 

 derful that this learned gentleman should have been 

 mistaken, since most of the travellers who have jour' 

 neyed over Egypt have never seen the lotus -f. On 

 the contrary, it is impossible even to enter Egypt 

 without seeing many ot them ; for in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Rossetta, the numerous ditches of the 

 fields where rice is cultivated, are filled with them. 



But what has contributed to confuse the history 

 of the lotus nymphea is, that it has frequently been 

 mistaken for a totally different plant, which the 

 ancients also called lotus, and which composed 

 the principal nourishment of certain nations of 

 Africa, who on that account were called lotophagi. 

 This latter bears no relation to the lotus which 

 grows in Egypt ; it is a shrub, a species of wild 

 jujube-tree, as Citizen Desfontaines has ascertain- 

 ed J, and which grows in several parts of Bar- 



* Philosophical Researches respecting the Egyptians and Chi- 

 nese, vol. i. p. 157. 



f Letters on Egypt, vol. i. p. 8, notei. 

 \ Journal de Physique, October 1 788. 



bar 



y. 



