AND LOWER EGYPT. 34I 



a preservative against a number of maladies. I 

 also ate some bunches of this fenu-greek. I did 

 not find it unpleasant, but I was far from experi- 

 encing, in this sort of repast, the same pleasure 

 with the people of the country. With regard to 

 its effects, I neither received benefit nor injury 

 from it. 



The Egyptians do not content themselves with 

 devouring the stalks and the leaves of the fenu- 

 greek, they likewise make the seeds to spring up, 

 and eat the long shoots. It is a highly valued pre- 

 paration in their eyes, which possesses in an emi- 

 nent degree the virtues which they attribute to the 

 plant. To obtain a quick germination of the seeds, 

 they fill a basket with them, which they allow 

 to soak in a running water during two or three 

 days : they afterwards heat it up on a bed of straw 

 or grass, in order that they may become warm ; they 

 cover a portion of the seeds thus soaked with little 

 earthen vessels, in the form of mutilated cones, 

 and open at top. It is from these openings that the 

 bhoots, which very soon grow large, spring forth, 

 uniting themselves together, and they stop them 

 there by bending them downwards. At length 

 they lift the vessel filled with these young shoots, 

 and eat them with the seeds which produced them. 

 You may purchase twelve little pots thus stored for 

 a medina, that is to say, nearly a halfpenny of our 



z 3 money. 



