HERODOTUS AS A BOTANIST. 77 



tlie hlttish variety. — On referring to Nine Hundred Miles up the 

 Nile, p. ()5, the following passage occurs : " These swamps^ 

 {i.e., swamps on the Cairo side of Damanhoor, distant at a 

 rough estimate from forty -five to fifty miles from Alexandria) 

 are covered with the plants of the water lily, but there are 

 only a few — very few, and those white ones — in bloom. 1 

 (1(» not think that they are the same as our English species, 

 l)ut it is difficult to determine from the railway carriage. (I 

 have since learned that they are the true Egyptian lotos.) 

 Over and above this passage in my book I may add that my 

 recollection of these flowers is that though similar in shape 

 to our own Avhite water lily they were somewhat smaller in 

 size, and that some of them at any rate had the " bluish 

 tinge ' recorded in Rawlinson's notes, and were therefore 

 prol;)ably the var. coernlea. The time of its appearance 

 (November 28th) will also correspond Avith that noticed by 

 Herodotus, as even towards the close of the year the annual 

 inundation of the Nile has not altogether subsided, and 

 certain of them may have been in flower for several days 

 before ni}^ arrival. 



The statement of Herodotus above quoted in reference to 

 '•another species of lily " probably refers to ihe nelurnbinm 

 (;r nympJuva nelumbo, a species common in India, and intro- 

 duced into Egypt. Herodotus further states that there is 

 another species of lily which contains a number of seeds 

 about the size of an olive stone, which are good to eat, and 

 these are eaten both green and dried. According to the 

 note in Rawlinson's Herodotus this is perhaps the nymplia'a 

 nelumbo or nelurnbinm, which is common in India, but which 

 grows no longer in Egypt. I may here remark that the 

 njimplura nelumbo is as conspicuous in Hindoo mythology as 

 the nympluca Lotus in Egyptian, and that Kawlinson is 

 (piite correct in his statement that it is evident that the 

 lotns is not borrowed from India, as it was the favourite 

 plant of Egypt before the Hindoos had established their 

 religion there. He likewise announces that the care taken 

 in planting the nymphcea nelumbo formerly seems to show it 

 AN'us not indigenous in Egypt. Crocodiles and the nelumbiwn 

 are represented, with the Nile god, on the large, statue in 

 the Vatican at Rome and in many Roman-Egyptian sculp- 

 tures, but it is remarkable that no representation of the 

 nrhnnbiiim occurs in the sculptures, though the common 

 itiimpluea lotus occurs so often. I cannot agree Avith the 

 Professor as to its being remarkable. It is all but certain 



