316 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



bary *. However this may be, the nymphea of 

 Lower Egypt yields a kind of tubercle, which is 

 gathered when the waters are withdrawn. Those 

 which are left are sufficient to reproduce the plant. 

 They are dried and preserved to be eaten, boiled 

 like our potatoes, which they nearly resemble in 

 taste ; but they have less consistency, and are not 

 so spongy, so that they are swallowed with diffi- 

 culty, and it would not be easy to eat more than 

 one of them without being obliged to drink. 

 They are sold ready dressed, and at a very redu- 

 ced price, in the streets of Rossetta, where the 

 lower classes eat them in great quantities. 



Among useful plants, I observed the racket "f~, 

 the fruit of which the inhabitants also eat, and 

 among the trees the seissaban, or theyellow flowered 

 and sweet-smelling acacia ^, and the sycamore fy. 

 The foliage of the latter is of a very beautiful 

 green ; its branches expand, and cover with their 

 shade a vast extent of ground. Its wood is very 

 hard, and almost incorruptible. The ancients em* 



* Rhamnus lotus. Lin. 



-j- Cactus ofiufitia. Lin. 



J Ficus sycamorus. Lin. — Ficus sycamorus vera. Forskal, Flora 

 Egyptiaco-Arabica, p. 180. 



§ The cassia of gardeners. Mimosa farnesiana. Lin. N. B_ 

 This seissaban must not be confounded with the sesban (ceschy~ 

 tnene sesban. Lin.), a shrub with yellow flowers about the size 

 of the myrtle, and with which the Egyptiansmake their hedges. 



ployed 



