HERODOTUS AS A BOTANIST. 9-^ 



required. The husbandman might safely trust to nature for 

 an ample return. Bounteous Mother Earth gave from her 

 teeming breast " the staff of life " in prodigal abundance, 

 and corn was gathered " as the sand of the sea," very much, 

 till he " left numbering" (Gen. xli, 49). According to Pliny 

 (^Nat. Hist., xviii, 7), the return on the corn sown was a 

 hundred-fold. The grain, however was light. 



In Nme Hundred Miles up the Nile, p. 115, I have recorded 

 my first impressions of the durra fields. {Addenda VI J I.) 



Several diiri-a fields succeed along the western bank. 

 Respecting this grain, which is a species of millet, it may be 

 mentioned that its growth is similar to tliat of the Indian 

 corn, but that the plant reaches at least twice the height, 

 and that the seeds, which its heavy head contains, are 

 much smaller. The said head consists of a mass of seeds, 

 not placed in regular rows, as is the case with Indian corn, 

 but forming a densely packed cone. The harvest of the 

 ci'op is going on now, but its cultivation would seem to be 

 confined to some distance up the river, as it hardly if at a,ll 

 occurs in the neighbourhood of Cairo. I may mention here 

 that the date Avas December 19th, and that the durra fields 

 in question were situate from fifty to one hundred miles south 

 of Cairo. Just as the lentils sold in the bazaars are of two 

 colours, red and broAvn, so the heads of durra. consisting of 

 masses of seeds, are of tAVO colours, also red and yellow, 

 but the yelloAv is by far the most ordinary and common 

 tint. By yelloAv I do not mean of a bright yellow like 

 Indian corn, but of the same colour as an ordinary grain of 

 wheat. Each ripe head of durra must contain many 

 hundreds of seeds, circular like small peas, constituting 

 probably a far more prolific return than any other grain 

 with Avhicli I am acquainted, but quite impossible to count, 

 the head is so densely packed, unless it -be picked to pieces 

 Avhile deliberately enumerated for the purpose. We are 

 further informed in Rawlinson's Ancient Egypt that the doora. 

 harvest is represented on the monuments as takhig place at 

 the same time as the wheat harA'-est, but this is perhaps 

 not intended as the assertion of a fact. In modern Egypt the 

 chief harvest (namely, of the doora) is sown in April and 

 reaped in July, and the ancient practice may have been 

 similar. That the simultaneousness of the two harvests is 

 not intended to be asserted as a fact I, for one, fully main- 

 tain. Ripe durra Avas sold in the bazaars of Keneh during 

 my visit there in the month of December, but wherever 



