FLORA OF THE OASES. 337 



scapes is due especially to the prevailing African vegetation, here represented by 

 the tarfa (^tamaris Nilotica), the date, and sycamore. The dum-palin, which, 

 however, nowhere grows spontaneously in Egypt, is met in the gardens only above 

 Esneh. Formerly the Fayum bore the name of " Sycamore Land ;" and one of the 

 ancient appellations of Egypt itself was " Land of the Bek Tree," probably a 

 species of palm. 



All the villages have still their avenues of palms encircling the walls, or fring- 

 ing the banks of the canals, and everywhere the people gather in the evening 

 beneath the shade of the broad-branching sycamore. The sycamore, a very 

 different species from the plant known by that name in Europe, was formerly far 

 more common in Egypt than at present. Its wood, supposed to be "incorruptible," 

 was employed in the manufacture of costly furniture, and especially of the coffins 

 placed in the sepulchral chambers. After a lapse of three thousand years, the 

 boards recovered from these tombs still retain their firmness and delicacy of texture, 

 thanks to the excessive dryness of the atmosphere. The fruit of the sycamore was 

 regarded by the ancients as one of the choicest, whence the saying that " the man 

 who had once tasted it could not fail to return to Egypt." On this account it was 

 customary on setting out for foreign lands to eat of these figs, in order thereby to 

 secure the traveller's return to the Nilotic plains. Now, however, the fruit of the 

 Egyptian sycamore is regarded as fit food only for the ass. Has its flavour 

 deteriorated, or has the taste of the Egyptians themselves undergone a change 

 since those times ? 



But if some species would seem to have been modified, others are known to 

 have entirely disappeared. The dug-out tree stems in which the dead were laid 

 during the eleventh dynasty belong to varieties which are now met only in Sudan. 

 The fruit of the dûm-palm, which is no longer found north of Upper Egypt, and 

 that of the argun, now confined to Nubia, occur in great abundance in the old 

 Egyptian burial-places. And what has become of the pap3^rus, whose name is 

 associated more intimately than any other with Egyptian civilisation itself ? Salt, 

 Drovetti, E-eynier, Minutoli, have discovered it in the neighbourhood of Damietta ; 

 but it is no longer found in any other part of Egypt. Thus it has all but disap- 

 peared from its original home, while still flourishing in Syria and in Sicily, whither 

 it was introduced from the Nile Valley. 



Where also are the masses of pink lotus, with its broad-spreading leaves, 

 beneath which the people of Alexandria, in the time of Strabo, floated on the still 

 waters, enjoying the cool zephyrs and perfume of the flowers ? The white lotus, 

 formerly diffused throughout the whole land, is no longer met beyond the limits 

 of the delta. Eeeds and the pink epilobium are now the plants most frequently 

 occurring on the shores of the lakes and meres in Lower Egypt. 



Flora of the Oases. 



The flora of the oases, separated from that of the Nile Valley for an unknown 

 cycle of ages, presents some remarkable features. Thus while the Egyptian 



22— AF. 



