3fr2 



manner, desiring I would send my own people to seleet such spe- 

 cimens as I thought proper, and place them in a temple to Friend- 

 ship in my own country. 1 did so; and deputed some Hindoo 

 workmen to collect such small images as I pointed out in the 

 dilapidated walls of forsaken dewals, and from the exterior orna- 

 ments at the Gate of Diamonds, which in eight groups now adorn 

 an octagon building at Stan more-hill, erected for that purpose, 

 under a linden-grove on the margin of a lake profusely adorned 

 by the nymphea lotos, Avhich, when its snowy petals and expanded 

 foliage arc gently agitated by the southern breeze, reminds me of 

 the sacred tanks in Guzerat. 



I have often mentioned this lovely flower; the intelligent Mr. 

 Knight throws a new light upon the subject: " growing in the 

 water, amongst its broad leaves it puts forth a flower, in the centre 

 of which is formed the seed-vessel, shaped like a bell, or inverted 

 cone, and punctuated on the lop with little cavities, or cells, in 

 which the seeds grow to maturity, decay, and again shoot forth-; 

 for the orifices of these cells being too small to let the seeds drop 

 out when ripe, new plants germinate in the places where they 

 were formed, the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrice to nou- 

 rish them until they acquire such a degree of magnitude as to 

 burst it open and release themselves.; after which, like other 

 aquatic weeds, they take root wherever the current deposits them. 

 This plant, therefore, being thus productive of itself, and vegetat- 

 ing from its own matrice without being fostered in the earth, was 

 naturally adopted as the symbol of the productive power of the 

 Deity upon the waters/' To this Maurice alludes in his beautiful 

 poem on the lotos of Egypt. 



